Funeral today for Mother Angelica
Published 5:00 am Friday, April 1, 2016
Archbishop Charles J. Chaput will preside over the Solemn Funeral Mass for EWTN founder Mother Angelica today at the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament at 11 a.m.
Eternal Word Television Network is also planning a service in Rome that will coincide with the local service today.
Local law enforcement officials have been working with state agencies to plan for what is expected to be a large crowd and traffic before and after the funeral.
EWTN also reported after hearing of the death of Mother Angelica on Easter Sunday, Father Federico Lombardi, the Vatican’s spokesman, recalled meeting the nun several years ago in Birmingham.
Mother Angelica was “a great witness and a missionary apostle,” Lombardi told EWTN News.
Mother Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, an Ohio-born Poor Clare nun, founded the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) in Irondale in 1981, which has since become the largest religious media network in the world. She passed away March 27 at the age of 92.
Although he was personally invited by EWTN’s chairman Michael Warsaw to attend Mother Angelica’s funeral today, Lombardi said he is unable to attend. However, he did confirm he would attend a Mass being organized by EWTN’s Rome bureau set to coincide with Mother Angelica’s funeral in the United States, the network reported.
The Mass will take place at the Vatican parish of St. Anne’s at 6 p.m. local time April 1, which coincides with Mother Angelica’s 11 a.m. funeral in Birmingham.
At the close of Mother Angelica’s funeral Mass, her body will be carried in a procession through the Shrine’s piazza and into the crypt where she is to be buried.