pagan ways into the Catholic Church. Leave us alone. Don't pour your poison, your venom, on all the church." Archbishop Rembert Weakland of the Archdiocese of Milwaukee criticized Mother Angelica's comment as "one of the most disgraceful, un-Christian, offensive, and divisive diatribes I have ever heard". Mother Angelica responded that "He didn't think a woman playing Jesus was offensive? He can go put his head in the back toilet as far as I am concerned!" The event is believed by some (National Catholic Reporter) to mark Mother Angelica's emergence "as a culture warrior", as prior to it she had sometimes "criticized feminists" but "rarely, if ever, attacked the ecclesiastical hierarchy". Following the attack, "Mother Angelica and the sisters in her convent abandoned their modified post-Vatican II habits in favor of the pre-Vatican II style." In 1997, Mother Angelica publicly criticized Cardinal Roger Mahony, then Archbishop of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, for his pastoral letter on the Eucharist, "Gather Faithfully Together: A Guide for Sunday Mass", which she perceived as lacking emphasis on transubstantiation (the presence of Christ in the Eucharist): "I'm afraid my obedience in that diocese would be absolutely zero. And I hope everybody else's in that diocese is zero". Cardinal Mahony regarded her comments as accusing him of heresy. Mother Angelica later conditionally apologized for her comments. In 1999, Bishop David E. Foley of the Diocese of Birmingham, Alabama, issued a decree prohibiting priests in his diocese from celebrating Mass ad orientem (which literally denotes "to the east", which refers to the priest having their back to the congregation) under most circumstances. Although the decree did not specifically name EWTN, supporters and critics generally agreed that the decree, which applied to "... any Mass that is or will be televised for broadcast or videotaped for public dissemination", was authored specifically to target EWTN. Bishop Foley stated that the practice of the priest celebrating ad orientem "amounts to making a political statement and is dividing the people." Apostolic visitation In 2000, Archbishop Roberto González Nieves of San Juan, Puerto Rico, performed an apostolic visitation of EWTN. Nieves focused on three issues — the actual ownership of the network; the associated monastery's right to donate property to EWTN; and, since she had never been elected, the authority of Mother Angelica. However, before Nieves could write his final report, Mother Angelica resigned from her positions as EWTN CEO and board