The Pope & The Alabama-Based EWTN

 

The Washington Post has published an article identifying some American Catholics who Pope Francis may have been referring to when he recently said...

 ...some Catholics in the United States exhibit “backwardness” and warned that at times “ideologies replace faith.”

The Post article singles out the Eternal Word Television Network (EWTN) as one possible target:

Raymond Arroyo

The news director for Eternal Word Television Network who moonlights as an occasional Fox News host, Arroyo regularly gives air time on his show “The World Over” to Francis critics such as Archbishop Carlo Maria Viganò, the former papal nuncio in the United States; Cardinal Raymond Burke; and former Trump adviser Stephen K. Bannon. As a frequent guest on Fox News, Arroyo has gone further, mocking a Vatican official who came down with covid-19 despite having had a vaccination and booster.

Since joining EWTN in 1996, Arroyo has been instrumental in the network’s evolution from a place for affable, if firmly conservative, religious programming to a channel that includes politically charged commentary. Francis is widely believed to have criticized the group in the past: When asked by a reporter in 2021 about those who take issue with his papacy, Francis referred to a “big Catholic television station that continually speaks poorly about the pope,” calling it “the work of the devil.”