Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is today not widely known, though he deserves to be.
He was born Peter John Sheen in El Paso, Illinois on 8th May 1895 to Newton and Delia Sheen, and was the eldest of four boys. He later changed his first name to Fulton, his mother's maiden name, in her honour, following her death.
When the family moved to Peoria (also Illinois) young Peter got his first experience of serving at Mass when he became an altar boy at St Mary's Cathedral.
He was an exceptional student at both school and university, and excelled in debates, showing an early aptitude for public speaking. After attending St Paul Seminary in Minnesota he was ordained to the priesthood in 1919 at the age of 26.
Fr Sheen studied further at a variety of universities in America and Europe, including for a PhD at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium. During his time there he was the first American to win the Cardinal Mercier award for the best philosophical treatise.
One of many true but funny stories he told during his later televised sermons tells how he felt moved to go to Lourdes during the holidays whilst a student at Leuven. Having no money, though, he borrowed his rail fare from his brother who was also a student of the university. He decided that as Our Lady had probably inspired his desire to see Lourdes, she would help him find the money to stay there. He also told - rather embarrassed, years later - how he had thought at the time that if the Blessed Mother could miraculously find the money for a hotel, she could just as well find him a lot of money as a little, and so he booked himself into the best hotel in town.
A week of praying at the grotto for the funds to pay his hotel bill passed, and no miracle came. The day he had to leave the hotel also came and he decided to make one last desperate trip to the grotto to apologise for his extravagance and ask Our Lady to help him. On his way back to the hotel, wondering what on earth to do, he was approached by a wealthy American man who asked "Are you an American priest?" Young Fr Sheen answered yes."And do you speak French?" was the next questions. Yes, he did, fluently. To paraphrase Bishop Sheen's own description, the gentleman then asked the most interesting question the young priest had ever heard: "Have you paid your hotel bill yet?"
The man turned out to be not only rich but also a devout Catholic who needed a French-speaking tour guide for the next two weeks, and he and Sheen became life-long friends.
Fr Sheen studied further at the Pontifical University of Rome before he finally became a parish priest. Twelve months were spent in London at St Patrick's in Soho whilst also lecturing at St Edmund's college. In 1926 he took over another St Patrick's, this one back home in Peoria. Less than a year later he was to return to teaching in Catholic universities, where he remained until 1950.
On 11th June he was consecrated a bishop and served as Auxiliary Archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York until 1965.
Fulton Sheen wrote a total of 73 books during his life. In 1930 he began a weekly Sunday night radio show called The Catholic Hour. Within twenty years he had a dedicated audience of four million people. Time magazine referred to him as 'the golden-voiced Monseigneur Fulton J. Sheen, U.S. Catholicism's famed proselytizer,' and reported that the radio show received up to 6000 letters a week from listeners. During this time Bishop Sheen became the first priest in the world to conduct a televised Mass, which inspired him to graduate to regular television work. His programme Life is Worth Living began in 1951 and is regularly repeated even today on the American Catholic TV Channel EWTN, which is where I discovered him. It was filmed at New York's Adelphi theatre in front of a live audience and Bishop Sheen took no fee for this work. Any money that was made went to the overseas missions. He was noted for never needing to use cue cards or notes and stated that this was because he had once heard a lady in church say of the priest who was reading his sermon at the lectern, "If he can't remember it, how does he expect us to?"
Life is Worth Living was so popular entertainers Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra struggled in the ratings on other channels. Fan mail jumped to 8500 letters a week and in 1952 the show won an Emmy award. In his acceptance speech the bishop said "I feel it is time I pay tribute to my writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
He spoke on matters of the Catholic faith obviously, but also on politics (particularly against communism), psychiatry, philosophy, comparative religion, history and literature. He always began his speeches with funny anecdotes or jokes, dropping more throughout until he reached the climax where he would passionately make his final argument. The show ran till 1957 and at its height drew in 30 million viewers.
Following this he was director of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith from 1958 till 1966 when he was made Bishop of Rochester, New York. He also ran a second TV series called The Fulton Sheen Programme from 1961 to 1968.
His speeches have been available to buy since 1974, first on reel-to-reel tape, then cassette, CD, DVD and now on the app store. Profits have gone toward rebuilding poor parishes, charitable contributions abroad, the Pope's missionary charity and now also to help fund the cause for his canonisation.
By then an Archbishop, Fulton Sheen died of heart disease on 9th December 1979. He is interred in the crypt of St Patrick's Cathedral, New York. The cause for his canonisation was opened in 2002 and on 28th June 2012 he was made Venerable.
On 6th March last year it was announced that Vatican medical experts could not determine a natural cause for a miracle attributed to Archbishop Sheen. Parents Bonnie and Travis Engstrom from Peoria prayed for his intercession when their baby son was stillborn. Doctors tried and failed to save the child but 61 minutes after his birth his heart started beating and his little lungs breathing all by themselves. The child is now in school and has none of the brain damage doctors expected from the length of time his brain had been starved of oxygen. He is a healthy, happy little boy and his parents named him James Fulton.
Archbishop Fulton John Sheen brought hope to his viewers and faith to the faithless. He converted many souls, including Henry Ford II. He raised money for the poor all over the world and inspired a generation. He needs two more miracles before he can be made a saint and I fervently hope these will come.
I'd like to end my post the same way Bishop Sheen ended each of his talks: "Bye now, and God love you."
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