Published: July 2, 2012
Fulton the Venerable
A TV personality
The following comes from a June 28 posting on the Whispers in the Loggia website.
In an audience this morning with his chief Saintmaker, Cardinal Angelo Amato SDB, the Pope assented to several decrees of canonization, beatification and the heroic virtue of souls on the path to sainthood.
Of them all, however, none are as likely to resonate among this crowd more than the declaration as "Venerable" of the figure who's arguably the most celebrated and effective evangelist in the history of the faith on these shores, once the nation's most-watched TV personality -- the epic, great and beloved "Bishop Sheen"....
The declaration of Fulton Sheen's heroic virtue marks the Vatican's affirmation of a process concluded by his native diocese of Peoria in early 2008. A miraculous healing attributed to his intercession has already been presented to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
For original posting, Click here.
To see video of Fulton Sheen preaching,Click here.
Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 12:58 AM By charlio
Downloads of all his talks for $27 at fultonsheen.com
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 3:41 AM By MIKE
Both Fulton Sheen, and Mother Angelica (founder of EWTN TV), have helped to save many Souls.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 6:09 AM By Life Lady
I am not at all surprised, I have loved this man since I was a child and we used to watch him on the television. God is so good that he gave us Fulton Sheen!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 6:16 AM By John F. Maguire
Fulton J. Sheen, Fr. Andre Lemieux has emphasized, was a Thomist. As such, he always remained current -- current within the horizon of the cultural level of the times in which he lived. "From his first book, _God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy_ (1925), a commentary on the Pars Prima of St. Thomas Aquinas' _Summa Theologica_, to the one-volume edition of _Life is Worth Living_ (1978) on Aquinas's treatment of the moral virtues, Sheen averaged more than one book a year." Throughout these writings,
"his language," Fr. Lemieux observes, "is always clear, even crystal clear. And his ideas are never abstract in the pedantic sense but are always constantly illustrated with stories from real life and explained in concrete terms that remind one of Christ's own teaching by telling parables. Once, having completed post-graduate work at Louvain University in Belgium, he paid a visit to Cardinal Mercier who was much involved in the restoration of the works of St. Thomas to the Catholic curriculum. 'Your Eminence,'
he asked, 'you were always a brilliant teacher; would you kindly give me some suggestions about teaching? 'I will --
always be current; know what the modern world is thinking about, read its poetry, its history, its literature; observe its architecture and its art; hear its music and its theater; and then plunge deeply into St. Thomas and the wisdom of the ancients and you will be able to refute its errors.'" Source: Fr. Andre Lemieux, "Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen," Society of St. Pius X, District of Asia website, nd. Fulton J. Sheen's clear and engaging books exemplify Cardinal Mercier's advice, truly self-appropriated, truly taken to heart. ~ Fr. Lemieux, for his part, specially recommends _Calvary and the Mass_ (1936); _Life of Christ_ (1954), _Three to Get Married_ (1951), and _The World's First Love_ (1952).
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 7:12 AM By MacDonald
In a country that has been infamous for its anti-Catholic bigotry since day one, this man of God did wonders, using the media. I love listening to his tapes, which always life up my soul!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 7:35 AM By JLS
I grew up watching TV, and never heard of Abp Sheen until I became Catholic in 1979. I wonder if, outside of the Catholic media and coffee table circuit, anyone else actually entertains the news of Catholic goings on.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 7:53 AM By Catherine
"The greater the sinner the greater the right he has to mercy."- St. Faustina Diary (281) This is wonderful news. Trust in God! Pray, fast and confidently keep watch for more great assistance from heaven! If St. Theresa of Lisieux the Little Flower said, "I will spend my heaven doing good on earth," then surely in Archbishop Fulton Sheen the Venerable, we have another great intercessory advocate for the battle that lies ahead. While Archbishop Fulton Sheen lived on this earth he fully recognized this upcoming battle that we are now facing. The Church Christ founded vs. Modernism. Let us pray for the powerful intercession of the Venerable Fulton Sheen to spend his heaven taking on the conversion of George Soros and others who seek to destroy our religious freedom. When you are with God, *if* it is God's Holy Will, then all things are possible! Tall orders are never too tall for God and His Angels and His faithful servants on earth who are now on the path to being Venerated Saints!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 8:23 AM By MD
I love Venerable Archbishop Sheen. Like many people, I came back to the faith largely because of him, his love of the Lord and listening to his lovely words recorded 50 and 60 years ago. I truly love Bishop Sheen and consider him one of my heroes, one of my closest friends and as the one of the most influential mentors I have had in my spiritual journey. God Love You.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 9:21 AM By Dana
That was an excellent post, John M. and really gives us a deeper appreciation of this great man. (great because the spirtit of God dwelt within him) All of us have some sort of personal remembrance of him, whether from seeing him on the telly or vicariously from hearing stories about him from others. Michael Voris tells of being an altar boy in SanFrancisco (I think) when at the end of the service his eminence was greeting visitors and a young man was waving a book to get his attention and cried"I've just published a book uniting the philosophies of Zen with Catholicism" or something to that effect, but thinking he was impressing Bp.Sheen. According to Voris, he shouted over the heads of the crowd to the young man, "Leave! Get out of this church!' I'm just paraphrasing but it was quite a story. Bet you could find it on his website by typing in Archbishop Sheen's name.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 9:29 AM By Anne T.
Now this is news worth hearing.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 10:02 AM By JLS
Has anyone ever heard a non-Catholic say anything about Abp Sheen? or about the Catholic Church, even?
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 10:24 AM By irene
God love him! A wonderful advocate for us is now with God! Pray for us, Archbishop Sheen, that we too will make it home safely, and remain faithful and steadfast to the teachings of the Magisterium of our Holy Mother Church!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 10:37 AM By FrMichael
Amidst the mediocrity that AmChurch produces in such abundance, Archbishop Sheen sparkled like a diamond in the rough. Archbishop Sheen, pray for us!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 11:40 AM By pete
JLS, this is perhaps a generation thing. From the '40's on radio to the 50's on TV MILLIONS of people listened to him and was a household name FAR beyond the Church. He had a theatrical style but it was the SUBSTANCE of his teaching that stuck; that was largely because of the SHARED JUDEO-CHRISTIAN MORALITY of our nation before the sexual revolution. But in his serious delivery, after about 15 minutes he'd suddenly pause and relate something humorous, but in such a way as to support his serious point. Clerical jealousy of Cardinal Spellman got him yanked from TV. You have to realizse that he was the PIONEER of televangelism. Protestant media DID NOT EXIST. And the SECULAR TV had real respect for him, because his ratings soared against all competing programs put up against him.
The wind went out of the sails of Catholic media when he was yanked and has only returned with EWTN.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 1:10 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Archbishop Fulton Sheen loved America. We must invoke his aid in our present struggles to preserve freedom here in his and our beloved America.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 1:22 PM By Abeca Christian
I'm grateful that he is remembered and I pray that more and more of our youth will know of him and listen to his talks. I appreciate the tone of conviction and backbone in them!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 3:46 PM By keithp
Venerable Sheen's "This is the Mass" was an eye opener for me. I got this pre NO edition after attending my second EF Mass. Wow. What a blessing to have recieved the knowledge of what the Mass really is. It's a beautiful book now sadly out of print.
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 4:03 PM By John F. Maguire
"His television programs were watched by as many non-Catholics as Catholics, and he received more mail from non-Catholics than from Catholics." Barry J. Hickey, Archbishop of Perth, Western Australia, "Fulton J. Sheen: Prophetic Inspiration for Today's New Evangelisation," Inaugural Lecture, City of Perth, reprinted in _AD2000_, Vol. 13, No. 2 (March 2000).
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 5:49 PM By max
archbishop sheen is grrrrrrrrrrrreat. even so many years later, his insights (for example, about young people), his compassion, his dedication, his sense of humor, are just grand. like ABECA, i think it would be very cool to expose our young people to his tapes, especially in catholic schools and religion programs, for discussion. some of the stuff they won't understand at first given the time lag, but it would be a great thing!!! (and even rates three exclamation points)
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 10:00 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
My buddy who brought me to Archbishop Khai, who was Archbishop Khai's Director of American Missions Appeals, and who was also Mother Theresa's Confessor and Spiritual Director, told me that one time he and many other priests were in a conference for priests with Archbishop Sheen and the Archbishop told them "my brothers, the Church is now and will be under tremendous attack, and it will come more from within than from without"!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 10:15 PM By Linda Maria
I am THRILLED!! I am a lifelong Sheen admirer, and loved all his 1950's TV shows, as well as his many books! As a child, I was deeply impressed by his daily Holy Hour, and great love for our Blessed Mother! Sheen was incomparable, far greater in his era than someone like the strangely liberal "hippie-youth-oriented" Blessed Pope John Paul II, who to me, was not a truly "Catholic" Pope! I cannot possibly understand nor relate to a Pope like Blessed John Paul II, but I do respect him anyway, and greatly admire his miracles while on Earth, as well as those after he went to Heaven! To me, Archbishop Sheen is absolutely incomparable, and no Churchman in the post-Vatican II world can possibly fill his shoes! Another recent Saint I greatly admire is Padre Pio- (St. Pio) - a true Catholic, and a Saint!
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Posted Monday, July 02, 2012 11:15 PM By Abeca Christian
max they have a rap song video of him, pretty cool. Not that I care for rap oh wait maybe it was another type of music but it was catchy and it can catch the attention of our youth.
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Posted Tuesday, July 03, 2012 4:58 PM By RRB
Back in the 1950's, I was blessed by the good fortune and grace to see the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen in person. San Francisco's Civic Auditorium, I recall vividly, was packed --
standing room only for Catholics and non-Catholics alike. In the course of this solemn day's three hour service, Monsignor Sheen gave his traditional Good Friday homily with holy fervor and great reverence.
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Posted Tuesday, July 03, 2012 10:13 PM By James
Bishop Sheen was so talented in educating millions of us as well as milllions of non-Catholics about our Catholic faith. One of many avenues he used to teach us was by narrating in educational movies. There is an excellent movie in which Bishop Sheen narrates a Tridentine Latin Mass (TLM) on Easter Sunday at our Lady of Sorrows Catholic Church at Chicago Illinois in 1941. In this black and white movie he describes the many parts and ceremonies of a High TLM. It can be watched on you tube, search for: ww.youtube.co m/watch?v=R6AOvStZS64. To think 71 years ago when this movie was made, before the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, this high TLM was the only Roman Catholic worship (besides low TLM) in the entire world, and said 24 hours per day, 7 days per week, following strict rubrics. There was no straying nor contamination by local cultures. The beautiful, holy, and reverent TLM prescribed to the 12 Apostles by our Lord Himself is spoken entirely in Latin (a dead language), and prayed through the centuries all the way up to our great-grand parents. The TLM is the highest form of worship, the unbloody renewal of the Sacrifice of the Cross. One TLM gives God more praise and thanksgiving, makes more atonement for sin and pleads more eloquently, than does the combined worship of all the souls in heaven, on earth and in purgatory. In the Sacrifice of the Altar, it is Jesus Christ Who is our High Priest, Mediator, and Victim. Being God as well as Man, His prayers, merits, and offerings are infinite in value. Therefore we should hear the TLM because the TLM is the best means we have: to give glory to our heavenly Father, to thank Him for all His blessings, to make reparation for all our sins, to obtain all the blessings we desire, to release souls from Purgatory and shorten our time there, to preserve us from all dangers to the soul and body, to be consoled at the hour of death, and to intercede for us at the Judgment seat of God. Seek and find a TLM today!
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Posted Wednesday, July 04, 2012 6:47 AM By Aaron
As a teenager, I watched Bishop Sheen's tv program many many times. Many of my non Catholic friends also watched him. He was truly a man of God!
I am presently reading "Bad Religion" by Ross Douthat, an extraordinary book about religious heresies in the USA since 1960. He speaks of Bishop Sheen as probably the most important Catholic spokesman in the past 75 years. Douthat's book is worth the read.
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Posted Wednesday, July 04, 2012 7:52 AM By JLS
Sadly Ven Fulton only packed the house in SF in the 50s. Had he kept on going, maybe in the 60s near there at ucdavis he'd have shown up for one of those free noon concerts; instead we got a street preacher who also sold vacuum cleaners dorm to dorm. So, now some of you readers such as max and Maguire can see where I got my religious education. Say, wouldn't it be fun to have both max and Maguire at the same barbecue?
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Posted Wednesday, July 04, 2012 2:13 PM By max
"wouldn't it be fun to have both max and Maguire at the same barbecue?" JLS, i'll have you know that MAGUIRE and i are at the same barbecue right now (singing your praises of course), but i had to bring anlong a dictionary, a thesaurus, and an encyclopedia just to keep up.
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