The first time I encountered the unforgettable person of Mother Angelica was the mid-1990s. I was in graduate school, a former Catholic-turned-agnostic, but searching. I was coming back to the Catholic faith, it would turn out, but first through the arms of Protestant Evangelicalism.
Whether in my car or living room, I would flip through the channels on my radio or TV in search for Christian programming. As for the radio, there were no Catholic stations. Not one. They were all “Christian” stations, meaning Evangelical. As for TV, there were, much like still today, “Christian” stations comprised of a vague Protestant programming, most of it very poor quality and extremely loose theology—often wild, embarrassing, and thoroughly unconvincing (if not repellent) to a skeptic searching for answers. In fact, to this day, when you check your DirecTV or Dish Network guide, you can find a half-dozen or so such stations (all non-Catholic), which my Protestant friends and colleagues are embarrassed by.
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