Mother Angelica

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation
Mother Angelica in the church
Born	Rita Antoinette Rizzo April 20, 1923 Canton, Ohio, U.S.
Died	March 27, 2016(2016-03-27) (aged 92) Hanceville, Alabama, U.S.
Cause of death	Stroke
Residence	Claretian Monastery Hanceville, Alabama
Other names	Sister Angelica
Citizenship	American
Occupation	Religious sister, Abbess
Years active	1970–2001
Television	Eternal Word Television Network
Parent(s)	Jon and May Helen Rizzo

Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, PCPA (born Rita Antoinette Rizzo; April 20, 1923 – March 27, 2016), also known as Mother Angelica, was an American Franciscan nun best known for her television personality. She was also the founder of the internationally broadcast cable television network Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) and the radio network WEWN.

In 1981, Mother Angelica started broadcasting religious programs from a converted garage in Birmingham, Alabama. Over the next twenty years, she developed a media network that included radio, TV, and internet channels as well as printed media. In 2009, Mother Angelica was a recipient of the Pro Ecclesia et Pontifice Award granted by Pope Benedict XVI for services to the Catholic Church.

Mother Angelica hosted shows on EWTN until she had a stroke in 2001. She continued to live in the cloistered monastery in Hanceville, Alabama, until her death at age 92 on March 27, 2016.

Mother Angelica was born Rita Antoinette Rizzo on April 20, 1923, in Canton, Ohio, in a community of African-American and Italian immigrant mill workers. Of Italian American background, she was the only child of John and Mae Helen Rizzo (née Gianfrancesco). Her father, a tailor by trade, abandoned the family when Rizzo was only five and her parents divorced two years later. On March 10, 1931 her mother was granted custody of the young Rizzo, and her father ordered to pay five dollars a week in child support. Her mother only received "intermittent child-support payments from the father". While maintaining full custody, her mother struggled with chronic depression and poverty. This was in part because being a divorcée carried a social stigma at the time and the opportunities for a woman to secure income were limited especially in the height of the Great Depression.