Mother Angelica, who spearheaded the founding of the Eternal Word Television Network, has been placed on a feeding tube as she fights the lingering effects of two strokes she suffered 14 years ago. A spokesman for her order, the Poor Clares of Perpetual Adoration at Our Lady of Angels Monastery in Hanceville, said the 92-year-old nun was doing as well as could be expected for someone her age who remains partially paralysed. “From what I’m told, it’s not that she’s completely unable to eat. It’s assisting her to get the nutrients she needs,” said Luke Johnasen, director of pilgrimages at the monastery. Mr Johnasen told the US Catholic News Service that Mother Angelica has been fitted with the tube in recent weeks. “She’s had some ups and downs the last few months,” he said. “She’s a fighter.” Johnasen added that Mother Angelica remained confined to bed, but that she acknowledges visitors to her room in the monastery. “She’s able to communicate with a squeeze of a hand, make gestures with her eyes. She acknowledges people when they’re there. The nuns say she does sleep a lot,” he said. A native of Canton, Ohio, Mother Angelica launched EWTN on August 15, 1981, from the garage of her monastery. The initiative was greeted with scepticism from television executives who felt there was little demand for Catholic programming. The network’s website reports that it transmits programmes 24 hours a day to more than 230 million homes in 144 countries via cable and other technologies. The network still broadcasts hundreds of Mother Angelica’s shows even though she stepped down as chairman of the board and CEO of the network in 2000. On her 92nd birthday in April, the sisters at the monastery said in a statement that Mother Angelica offers her suffering “all up for the Church”.