Growing up Catholic, I watched EWTN and saw Catholic media become “a thing.” Mother Angelica, a cranky old nun on the channel, drove me nuts. Overly blunt, pushy, and a crab apple, I thought it was somehow odd to have a nun, someone who practices the quiet, contemplative, prayerful lifestyle trying to crush ego and notoriety, and yet getting loads of attention and laughs and air time. It felt odd and lacking in authenticity to me. Father Ken Richards, a priest on that channel who actually WAS engaging, turned out to be a child molester. Then another big name priest, Father John Corapi, was accused of fooling around with some girl and was summarily and unceremoniously thrown off the bus with no due process, and a bunch of the other folks got weird. Raymond Arroyo on EWTN was always strange, creepy and odd, and he’s on Fox News now.
I just don’t like to see Orthodoxy going “mainstream” in media and society. Christianity is and should be countercultural and never playing by the rules of contemporaries. I don’t want to hear “Orthodox Rock” music and I hope AFR never becomes a channel. It’ll be counterproductive.
Orthodoxy attracts a lot of odd people already. A widowed Presbytera friend of mine always says that. Quirky people come to our parish like moths to a flame. I’ll never figure it out.
Please no home spun nuns and cable channels!