Reliance on God’s providence has been at the core of EWTN from its foundation. Forty years ago, on Aug. 15, the Solemnity of the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary, Mother Angelica “flipped the switch,” launching EWTN’s first satellite television programming from a studio that only months earlier was her monastery’s garage. In the late 1970s, Mother Angelica saw the void of a Catholic presence in national media and she sought to fill it in a way that hadn’t been seen since Archbishop Fulton Sheen was a powerful presence on television and radio. Yet her vision didn’t stop there, with Catholic TV and radio shows. For Jesus, Mother always wanted the best. And so she sought to use every mass-media platform and every cutting-edge technology to spread the Gospel. The network she founded has expanded in ways she certainly envisioned, including broadcasting live from the Vatican and bringing global Catholic events into people’s homes. She had long hoped to have a presence in Rome, and, in 2016, EWTN officially opened a Vatican bureau, equipped for nightly coverage in view of the dome of St. Peter’s Basilica. Even the addition of a newspaper was something she had hoped for and was fulfilled when the Register became a part of EWTN in 2011. But EWTN has also grown to employ media platforms she could never have imagined, such as mobile devices, apps and social media.
Witness to Providence| National Catholic Register
Witness to Providence| National Catholic Register
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