I can say that I sorta knew a saint; well, I saw him on tv is closer to the truth. My mom liked his program, we watched it sometimes in the 1960s. I think by that time some of the episodes were reruns. But they were short; I think 30 minutes. To the extent that I was paying attention as a kid, I thought he was somewhat entertaining, once in a while he'd crack a joke. I still would find him preferable to present day televangelists.
Here is the coverage from America Magazine: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen declared ‘Blessed’ at beatification Mass in St. Louis - America Magazine
"Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a pro-prefect for the Holy See’s Dicastery for Evangelization and papal delegate, pronounced the Church’s declaration on Archbishop Sheen’s holiness of life and witness to Jesus Christ at a Sept. 24 Mass celebrated in The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis.....The location had been selected by Archbishop Sheen’s home Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, to accommodate the number of pilgrims who arrived for the beatification and its surrounding events. Around 50,000 people were in attendance, according to organizers."
"...The beatification — a papal act affirming an individual’s presence in heaven is worthy of belief — officially occurred between the liturgy’s Penitential Rite and the Gloria. Bishop Tylka made a formal request for Archbishop Sheen’s beatification to Cardinal Tagle. "
"...A short biography of Archbishop Sheen, who was born in El Paso, Illinois, in 1895 and died in New York in 1979, was read by Archbishop Sheen’s great-nephew, Paul Cunningham, after which Cardinal Tagle proclaimed the apostolic letter from Pope Leo XIV declaring the beatification in Latin. Bishop Tylka then read the letter in English, as applause followed both."
"...The first reading from the beatification Mass, Isaiah 52:7-10, was delivered in Spanish, with the second reading, 2 Corinthians 4:1-2, 5-7, proclaimed in Portuguese, while the Gospel taken from Mark 16:15-20 was proclaimed in English. The prayers of the faithful were offered in a variety of other languages, illustrating both the universal character of the Church and also the missionary mindset of Blessed Fulton J. Sheen, who served as the U.S. director for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
In his homily, Cardinal Tagle praised Archbishop Sheen as a “storyteller of Jesus” and “a “missionary who digs deep into the heart of the poor to meet Jesus there.” The cardinal noted then-Bishop Sheen‘s passionate advocacy for the poor during the Second Vatican Council. During the 1964 discussions on the document “Ad Gentes,” on the missionary activity of the Church, then-Bishop Sheen asked his brother bishops to “affirm” the notion of poverty and the bishops who came from poor and suffering parts of the Church. As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world,” he said.
"Cardinal Tagle commended Archbishop Sheen for making genuine connections with the people he met and to whom he preached and ministered. The beatification — a papal act affirming an individual’s presence in heaven is worthy of belief — officially occurred between the liturgy’s Penitential Rite and the Gloria. Bishop Tylka made a formal request for Archbishop Sheen’s beatification to Cardinal Tagle."
"...Enclosed in a special case called a reliquary, the relic is Archbishop Sheen’s mandible, or jawbone, chosen because it represents the archbishop’s tremendous gifts as an orator, teacher and evangelist."
(About that part, my reaction is "Please, God; do we have to desecrate someone's bodily remains to declare them Blessed? I doubt if Archbishop Sheen would have wanted his poor jawbone full of dental work to be on display in a glass case for people to look at. But people say I don't understand relics. I do, I just don't like this kind of thing.}
Some words about his life from the Wikipedia article about him: Fulton J. Sheen - Wikipedia
"Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in Illinois in 1919, Sheen quickly became a renowned theologian, earning the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1923. He went on to teach theology and philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and served as a parish priest before he was appointed an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He held this position until 1966, when he was made Bishop of Rochester. He resigned in 1969 as his 75th birthday approached and was made archbishop of the titular see of Newport (a diocese in Wales)."
"On October 21, 1966, Pope Paul VI named Sheen as bishop of Rochester.[18] While serving in Rochester, Sheen created the Sheen Ecumenical Housing Foundation. He also denounced American involvement in the Vietnam War in late July 1967.[19] On Ash Wednesday in 1967, Sheen decided to give St. Bridget's Parish building to the federal Housing and Urban Development program. Sheen wanted to let the government use it for black Americans. There was a protest since Sheen acted on his own accord. The pastor disagreed and the deal fell through."
"In the foreword of the 2008 edition of Sheen's autobiography, Treasure in Clay: The Autobiography of Fulton J. Sheen, the journalist Raymond Arroyo explains why Sheen ended Life Is Worth Living.[36] Arroyo wrote that "It is widely believed that Cardinal Francis Spellman drove Sheen off the air."
"Sheen pleaded his case about the funds directly to Pope Pius XII, who sided with him. Spellman later confronted Sheen and stated, "I will get even with you. It may take six months or ten years, but everyone will know what you are like."[36] Besides being pressured to leave television, Sheen also "found himself unwelcome in the churches of New York City. Spellman canceled Sheen's annual Good Friday sermons at St. Patrick's Cathedral and discouraged clergy from socializing with him."[36] In 1966, Spellman allegedly persuaded Pope Paul VI to appoint Sheen as bishop of Rochester and terminate his leadership at the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.[36] Sheen never talked about the quarrel with Spellman. In his autobiography, Sheen even went so far as to praise the cardinal.[36] In the late 1950s, the government donated millions of dollars' worth of powdered milk to the New York Archdiocese. In turn, Cardinal Spellman handed that milk over to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith to distribute to the poor of the world. On at least one occasion, he demanded that the director of the Society, Bishop Sheen, pay the Archdiocese for the donated milk. He wanted millions of dollars. Despite Cardinal Spellman's considerable powers of persuasion and influence in Rome, Sheen refused."[36
I hadn't known about this quarrel with Cardinal Spellman, but it doesn't reflect well on the cardinal. It is to Sheen's credit that he practiced the spiritual work of mercy of bearing wrongs patiently.
"I can say that I sorta knew a saint; well, I saw him on tv is closer to the truth."
ReplyDeleteYou've probably known way more than that. Folks whose holiness didn't get the official treatment.
"My reaction is "Please, God; do we have to desecrate someone's bodily remains to declare them Blessed?"
I didn't think we were still dismantling saint's bodies, a practice that should have ceased about 500 years ago. Better relics would have been Sheen's swirly cape and skull caps or his chalk boxes.
My mom liked that AB Sheen talked about real life and addressed spiritual problems with rational thought.
Cdl Spellman sounds dreadful!
Jean, I definitely have known some unofficial saints!
DeleteMany were floating around the hospital last week! One was the Congregationalist hospital chaplain. We had an interesting chat abt how covid changed the chaplaincy "biz," and she offered to request communion for me, though that ministry has dwindled from 100 volunteers to about 5. (Maybe career opportunity for Jim if he is willing to work w/ all comers.) I said I was no longer practicing, but I must have mentioned how I was missed my cats, and she had the therapy dog lady and her labradoodle visit. Church of God or Dog, fine by me!
DeleteJean, agree with your first post.relics from someone’s dead body are creepy, not to mention highly disrespectful.
DeleteThe chaplain sounds great. Did you have your heart surgery? All went well? Thanks be to God. Are you in rehab or home with your cats?
A friend’s daughter was a Quaker chaplain in hospitals for years. Covid finished her off. She’s now in IT. She’s About 51 years old.
My mom always watched Bishop Sheen. I never followed what he said but was fascinated by his pacing and swirling his cape dramatically. . The TV was black and white so his cape looked black. As I recall, he had fairly sharp facial features. He actually reminded me of Count. Dracula. Was he a saint? I have no idea. Is dedication to the Catholic Church enough to qualify as a saint? I doubt it, but people have claimed that his dedication to the church and his tv celebrity qualifies him .
DeleteI have known a couple of saints - a couple were Catholic and at least two are not Catholic. But none will be beautified.
Yes, 10 days post op from open heart surgery. Left hospital day 6. Home now. Recovery will be a long road.
DeleteChaplain, who is on salary at the hospital, said most Catholic EMs who brought Communion were retirees, and they dropped out as covid hit and did not want to come back.
They worked with the diocese to try to arrange Last Rites in compliance with isolation protocols.
Jean, I'm glad to hear that you got through the surgery. I hope recovery isn't too painful. Still praying for you.
DeleteFrom any information I have read, it seems that Sheen was a genuinely holy and charitable person who wasn't just a media hot dog. Actually stepped away from the media role in obedience to a superior at one point.
My brother in law had open heart surgery when he was 72. He and his wife drove to DC from Denver to have it done at Walter Reed (Navy for 20 years). They stayed with us for 5 weeks then drove back to Denver after getting the ok from Walter Reed. He’s now 81. His wife died a year ago from heart failure. There is no predicting, really. Glad you are home to recover. The cats will be good medicine.
DeleteKatherine I don’t know.much about Sheen. . But I have read that he liked the celebrity aspect - he had a pretty nice Manhattan apartment and liked rubbing elbows with the rich and powerful, sort of like Barron and Doyle.
Thanks. Cats have mostly shifted their routines back to include me. The nightly O2 and walker are interesting new features for them to puzzle over.
DeleteHow long will they keep you on oxygen? Or does that depend on how fast you heal. Prayers ascending for a fast recovery.
DeleteI understand a host of clergy attended the beatification - dozens of bishops, hundreds of priests.
ReplyDeleteNot sure how to say this in a way that won't p*ss of his fans, but - he doesn't really resonate with me. A little too clerical and institutional for my taste. Even his feud was institutional. And a little too media-ish. And too conservative-Catholic-ish.
Not every saint can be for every person, I guess.
"Not every saint can be for every person"
DeleteI think you are right about that, Jim. For instance, earlier this week was the feast day of St. Padre Pio. I have never really been able to connect with him, even though I recognize his holiness. His story is just a lot to process. I don't understand why God would inflict the stigmata on someone.
I guess my favorite saints would be Mary and Joseph and Gabriel the Archangel.
Sure. That's why God makes a lot of different ones. AB Sheen might not be my go-to, either, but I recognize that he used his gifts and the relatively new medium of TV to minister to people.
DeleteCertainly a contrast to Fr Coughlin, the radio priest out of Detroit preaching fascism.
My favorite saints are Hild, Guthlac, and Cuthbert, not well known outside the UK, and so never too busy to take my petitions.
My favorite is Francis of Assisi.
DeleteIs using tv to minister to people really enough to qualify for sainthood?
I don't think that was the sole criteria. I have a love-hate view of what the Church has always done with beatification and ensuing hagiography. I believe in the communion of Saints because we know who some of them are. But the process often leaves people with the idea that the saint was magical and perfect, which just isn't the case.
DeleteI have a big problem with “ proving” the dead person created a miracle for someone. Better just to honor them for their lives, not for unprovable “ miracles” . I prefer the ECUSA calendar of saints. Plenty of those from centuries ago but also people like Martin Luther King - imperfect people who did extraordinary things while still alive.
DeleteI went back to school as an old student in 1988. I attended the University of Rochester Institute of Optics for nine months to obtain my masters degree in optical engineering. While living there, I attended mass at their Newman Club. Very progressive. A nun delivered the homilies every week and they were good. I ascribe a lot of that diocese’s progressive energy to the previous tenure of Bishop Sheen who also demonstrated a social justice side for the poor and disadvantaged in Rochester to the chagrin of those in certain quarters. Sheen’s mind was strong, not calcified. I saw a rerun of one of one of his later shows ( on EWTN of all places) in which he discussed and praised Teilhard de Chardin and his evolutionary philosophy. I watched him on TV as a child. He was a showman celebrity perfectly adapted to the medium and able to outdraw Milton Berle. But there was a real mind and moral core to the man most evident when they appointed him to Rochester. He was not a phony.
ReplyDeleteHe may have been progressive in his thinking and supported social justice work, but there are thousands of priests and sisters who think progressively and actually go out to the people on the margins to do social justice work in the streets and shelters. They open free medical clinics and food pantries and help poor women with children they can’t adequately care for. So who is more saintly? A progressive bishop who encourages these things or those who are actually in the trenches doing the work? Why Bishop Sheen instead of someone like Daniel Berrigan who protested even though he knew he would be arrested? Arrested several times even after getting out of prison the first time? Why JPII who ignored the sexual abuse scandal, claiming it was an American problem and what else would you expect from America, and gave solace to priests instead of victims? Does self-flagellation indicate holiness or is it a twisted understanding of it? Why haven’t any of the now approved theologians like Gutiérrez and Boff and others who were silenced because of their writings on liberation theology been nominated for sainthood instead of JP II who silenced them? Instead of Fulton Sheen, who discovered the preaching medium of television? As you say, he was a showman, who outdrew Milton Berle. Does that make him a saint?
ReplyDeleteRome should declare a moratorium of fifty years on declaring any Pope or bishop a saint, and a twenty-five year moratorium on declaring any priest or religious a saint. Why? I don't see how Sheen or even Francis could be seen as a model for anyone else to imitate except for a bishop or a Pope. We still need some models for priests and religious but not that many. We do need more laity as models. So, they can be canonized more quickly less they get ignored.
ReplyDeleteAfter a pope, bishop, priest or religious dies, their advocates can start the process in motion, but once it begins they will have to wait 25 or 50 years for it to conclude. I think we should discourage not encourage cults to develop around popes, bishops, priests and religious.
Personally, while I think Dorothy Day deserves to be called a saint by some future generations, right now I am glad she is just plain Dorothy Day. As she said when asked about being a saint, "I hope I will not be dismissed so easily." Likewise, with Francis. I think in the light of history, both Pope John and Pope Francis will be seen as the great saints of the Papacy in our era, not Paul VI, and JP2. The latter were both good people who tried their best, but they made some great errors. Nothing worthy of being imitated, some things worthy of caution by future Popes.
Re: the 50-year moratorium: I can see the wisdom in this. The Holy See should be careful and give the facts an opportunity to come to light and be assessed.
DeleteI suppose the counter-argument is: people's memories fade, and they die, over a 50-year period, so the opportunity is lost to hear from those who encountered the holy ones.
I see Sheen died in 1979, so we're already ~47 years from his "birth date". It could easily take 3+ years to get from canonization to beatification.
I don't have a problem with Mother Theresa being made a saint within 50 years, although she certainly has her detractors.
I see Maria Goretti, Gianna Beretta Molla and Maximilian Kolbe all were canonized within 50 years, but in all three cases it was 40+ years.
Saint Carlo Acutis was canonized only 23 years after his death, I believe. I consider him a saint who is "promoted" (as in, promoted by church leaders and some Catholic media as someone whose holiness and example we should embrace). I assume there is a genuine cultus that underlies that.
FWIW, an American holy one who does resonate with me, even though he was a religious and a priest and I am neither, is Solanus Casey. I suppose his life and ministry was a generation or so earlier than Sheen's, but Casey's ministry years (basically the first half of the 20th century) was a time when newspapers, magazines and radio dominated media, so the opportunity was there for mass media to discover him. Yet as I understand Casey's life, media played a comparatively small role in making his work known among Catholics. People learned about him the old-fashioned way, via word-of-mouth.
DeleteI would love to see Jean Donovan, one of the American martyrs of El Salvador's civil war, be declared a saint. (And the religious sisters who were murdered with her also should be.) Apparently there is a group working on the process for Donovan, but I don't think they have made any progress so far. It wouldn't surprise me if the congregrations of the sisters who were martyred with her also are working on the causes for the sisters, but I have no knowledge of it. I'd guess the sisters have a better chance, if the religious orders take up the causes. (Although, based on the American sisters I know, they'll make sure Donovan isn't forgotten, either.)
DeleteAnne, you frame things in either/or. I would have no problem with Berrigan being beatified and so forth. Dorothy Day is another ecample. He may very well be under this Pope. I’m no expert on saints, past or present. Jean is. I’ll admit to having more of a problem with JPII than Sheen. Maybe because, in the end, JPII was a hardass and Sheen seemed more compassionate. With the explosive rise of TV, there was a new territory, and Sheen moved into it. People heard stuff they never would have otherwise. I know one person who never should be made a saint. Me.
DeleteI agree with you, Jack, except I would push back the whole process even longer - maybe 50-75 years after death. Laity have little chance because they don’t have a religious order or other large group pushing for them. I know a couple of people I would nominate but it would be almost impossible to push it through..
ReplyDeleteOn Sheen, NCR has a good article suggesting that without him, Kennedy might not have been elected president.
ReplyDeletehttps://www.ncronline.org/culture/how-fulton-sheen-paved-way-american-acceptance-catholics
Sheen's audience, given his high ratings, certainly had to include many non-Catholics. Although Barron and other bishops might dream of imitating him in popularity, they are largely limited to Catholics.
An interesting quote from that NCR article: "The substance of the show, Time noted, was "not dogma, but a mixture of common sense, logic and Christian ethics" that resonated with people of all faiths as he discussed topics like love, freedom, pleasure and peace."
DeleteI have never seen his show, but I had assumed he was talking specifically about Catholicsm, sort of presenting the Baltimore Catechism or something similar. As Time described it, it seems that is not the case.
I think his show did appeal to a broader audience than just Catholics. And I hadn't thought of it before, but maybe his show did help pave the way for people being able to consider voting for a Catholic.
DeleteInteresting idea. If Sheen, in full Catholic hierarch regalia, was popular beyond the Church, he very well may have ameliorated anti-Catholic suspicions. Kennedy, in his private life, was no great Catholic. But Kennedy living to complete two terms, and Khrushchev staying in power could have changed the path of the Cold War. Though there was no actual evidence of a conspiracy but there were mountains of motivation. Add to the list of possible culprits the Mossad. Kennedy opposed Israel getting nuclear capability. A few months later, he was assassinated. Then the suspect Oswald was assassinated by Jack Rubinstein who had connections with the Jewish mob.
Delete