Fundamentalist, evalgelical and conservative Baptist Christians are relatively rare in blue-collar cities in the Northeast and Great Lakes region. Very conservative Catholics – those that are almost nostalgic for the pre-Vatican II era – fill the void. They’re common in Cleveland, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, and especially Buffalo and Providence, the nation’s two most Catholic cities. On Adelphia Cable in the Buffalo area, EWTN airs on Channel 10; a very prominent slot.
EWTN, as others have said, is a cable television and radio network operated by the very conservative Poor Claire order of nuns, based in a monastery in Alabama. In very Catholic northern US cities, the network is the equivalent of TBN and other religious networks. Not much hellfire and damnation, but a lot of ritual, liturgy and promotion of Church doctrine and dogma. Many shows are hosted by a very elderly nun named Mother Angelica (nicknamed “The Pirate Nun” for the eyepatch she used to wear, or “The Brown Nun” because of her engulfing brown habit); she’s something of a meme in the Northeast. One of their most popular shows features the slow recital of the Rosary … over and over and over and over again for an hour.
Some people in Buffalo jokingly spell Catholic" as “Katlik”, because it’s the preferred pronunciation among many members of the area’s very large Polish-American population. No association with the KKK is intended.
Why would you even bother to come on here and drop the f-bomb as well as other words? Nobody here cares. Mother Angelica is old and that slow reading is the reading of the Rosary. I live in a town where I get EWTN as well as 5 other channels that try to drain you of your money. EWTN doesn’t do that. Jimmy Swaggert just had a 2 day marathon to raise $1.8 million and he did that 4 weeks ago. These are the people to watch out for. I haven’t seen anything on EWTN where they ask for my money in exchange for a prayer. That is garbage. I give what I can when I can. Those others are thieves.
I have occasionally encountered EWTN while channel-surfing and I have never been able to account for its existence. There’s an audience for clips of elderly nuns praying?! Or priests celebrating Mass?! I can see how a Catholic would want to do all that, but who wants to watch it?!
Televised golf, in all its soporific horror, at least offers something like suspense. But no priest will ever look down into the chalice and say “holy SHIT… this consecrated wine is still just WINE!”
Thank you all you for bringing back the horror of my Catholic upbringing to my memory. I hadn’t seen Marcelino, Pan y Vino mentioned in almost 30 years. I now need therapy.
Alas, the link GIGOBuster provided doesn’t let you deep link to a specific time in the video, but if you too want your very own emotional wounds that will never heal, fast forward to 62:12.
When Scorpions Attack!! is at 44:50
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to go curl up in a corner and weep for a few hours.
