Mother Angelica's Monastery Elects New Abbess, Asks for "continued prayers"

The monastery is an autonomous Poor Clares of the Perpetual Adoration monastery. The cloistered nuns elect their abbess and council from among their sisters every three years.

The monastery was founded by Mother Angelica and several other founding sisters from Sancta Clara Monastery in Canton, Ohio. It was dedicated May 20, 1962. Our Lady of the Angels will mark its feast day Aug. 2.

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“With our Holy Father Francis, Holy Mother Clare and all our Franciscan brothers and sisters in heaven, we return great thanks for our vocation and call, to live according to the Gospel, in continual thanksgiving and adoration to Our Lord in the Most Blessed Sacrament,” the monastery said.

Mother Angelica launched Eternal Word Television Network Aug. 15, 1981, as a new missionary endeavor. Her media apostolate has grown to become the largest Catholic media network in the world.

The monastery was originally at EWTN headquarters in Irondale. Mother Angelica moved it to Hanceville.

She died at the monastery in Hanceville March 27, 2016.

The monastery is adjacent to the Shrine of the Most Blessed Sacrament, which was dedicated in 1999.

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Some nuns from the monastery have been sent to their mother monastery in Ohio and to the Poor Clares’ cradle monastery in Troyes, France, the monastery website said. The community has made new foundations in Tonopah, Ariz., and San Antonio.

Kevin J. Jones is a senior staff writer with Catholic News Agency. He was a recipient of a 2014 Catholic Relief Services' Egan Journalism Fellowship.