EWTN

The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is a basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock and commercial-free Catholic programming. It is the largest Catholic television network in the United States, and is purported to be "the world's largest religious media network", (and according to the network itself) reaching 425 million people in 160 countries, with 11 networks. The network was originally founded by Mother Angelica , in 1980 and began broadcasting on 15 August 1981 from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, which Mother Angelica founded in 1962. She hosted her own show, Mother Angelica Live, until health issues led to her retirement in September 2001. As of 2017, Michael P. Warsaw, who is a consultant to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications, leads EWTN. In addition to its television network, EWTN owns the National Catholic Register newspaper, which it acquired in January 2011, and Catholic News Agency. The network maintains an online presence through its primary site, EWTN.com, and it has a dedicated commercial site, EWTNReligiousCatalogue.com. EWTN also has a 24-hour radio network, offering Catholic talk and worship programming to about 350 radio stations around the U.S. as well as SiriusXM Satellite Radio and shortwave radio.…

The Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) is a basic cable television network which presents around-the-clock and commercial-free Catholic programming. It is the largest Catholic television network in the United States, and is purported to be "the world's largest religious media network", (and according to the network itself) reaching 425 million people in 160 countries, with 11 networks. The network was originally founded by Mother Angelica , in 1980 and began broadcasting on 15 August 1981 from a garage studio at the Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale, Alabama, which Mother Angelica founded in 1962. She hosted her own show, Mother Angelica Live, until health issues led to her retirement in September 2001. As of 2017, Michael P. Warsaw, who is a consultant to the Vatican's Dicastery for Communications, leads EWTN. In addition to its television network, EWTN owns the National Catholic Register newspaper, which it acquired in January 2011, and Catholic News Agency. The network maintains an online presence through its primary site, EWTN.com, and it has a dedicated commercial site, EWTNReligiousCatalogue.com. EWTN also has a 24-hour radio network, offering Catholic talk and worship programming to about 350 radio stations around the U.S. as well as SiriusXM Satellite Radio and shortwave radio. Some of the schedule is the audio from EWTN television shows and some is original programming for radio listeners. Regular network programs include a daily Catholic Mass and sometimes in the Tridentine Mass format, the traditionalist Stations of the Cross, a taped daily recitation of the Rosary, and daily and weekly news, discussion, and Catechetical programs for both adults and children. Christmas and Easter programming; the installation Masses of bishops and cardinals; coverage of World Youth Days; and Papal visits, deaths, funerals, conclaves, and elections are also presented. Spanish language broadcasts are available on all platforms. On December 8, 2009, EWTN began broadcasting high-definition television. The network is overseen by a non-profit board of trustees, with the network's funding provided solely by viewer support and purchases from the network's online store, known as the EWTN Religious Catalogue; the network has no financing from either the Vatican, nor the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, or provider retransmission consent. In June 2026, María Montserrat Alvarado, former president and chief operating officer of EWTN News, has been appointed by Pope Leo XIV at the head of the Vatican Dicastery for Communication.

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Finance

While the network has trustees, it does not have shareholders or owners. A majority of the network's funding is from viewer donations about which it advertises 100% viewer supported, which keeps it from advertising secular or non-Catholic programming. Its traditional plea for donations is "Keep us between your gas and electric bill". Mother Angelica developed the fund raising slogan for viewers, "Please keep us between your gas and electric bill!"

Conflict with Pope Francis

In March 2021, Pope Francis reportedly told the EWTN reporter and cameraman on board a papal flight to Iraq that the network "should stop bad-mouthing me," according to a report in the Jesuit magazine America. On a 2021 trip to Slovakia, Francis complained in a "meeting with Jesuits" that "a large Catholic television channel that has no hesitation in continually speaking ill of the pope," and that "they are the work of the devil [...] I have also said this to some of them." In reply, archbishop emeritus Charles J. Chaput, who "led the archdiocese of Philadelphia and who is a former EWTN board member", stated that "any suggestion that EWTN is unfaithful to the Church" is "simply vindictive and false." Recurring guests on the weekly EWTN show "The World Over", hosted by EWTN anchor Raymond Arroyo, include: Other guests include Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, who has called on the pope to resign. EWTN also features a group calling itself "The Papal Posse" which includes along with Raymond Arroyo, the Rev. Gerald Murray (a New York priest, former U.S. Navy chaplain and canon lawyer), and Robert Royal (a Catholic author who founded the D.C. think tank the Faith and Reason Institute and the blog "The Catholic Thing") that according to Colleen Dulle of America magazine, "riffs on one another's criticisms of the pope and has given uncritical interviews to anti-Francis guests like Steve Bannon, who argued on air that his own populist politics better represent Catholic social teaching than Pope Francis does".

Text derived from https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?oldid=1377713624 under CC BY-SA 4.0; modifications have been made.