| The Most Reverend Fulton John Sheen |
|
|---|---|
| Titular Archbishop of Newport | |
| See | Newport (Titular) |
| Enthroned | October 6, 1969 |
| Reign ended | December 9, 1979 |
| Predecessor | None |
| Successor | Howard Tripp |
| Other posts | Bishop of Rochester (1966–1969) Auxiliary Bishop of New York (1951–1965) |
| Orders | |
| Ordination | September 20, 1919[1] |
| Consecration | June 11, 1951 |
| Personal details | |
| Birth name | Peter John Sheen |
| Born | May 8, 1895[1] El Paso, Illinois[1] |
| Died | December 9, 1979 (aged 84) New York, New York |
| Buried | St. Patrick's Cathedral, New York |
| Nationality | Irish-American |
| Denomination | Catholic |
Servant of God Fulton John Sheen, born Peter John Sheen (May 8, 1895 – December 9, 1979) was an American archbishop of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. His cause for canonization for sainthood was officially opened in 2002, so he is now referred to as a "Servant of God".
Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in 1919,[1] Sheen quickly became a renowned theologian, earning the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1923. He went on to teach theology and philosophy as well as acting as a parish priest before being appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He held this position until 1966 when he was made the Bishop of Rochester. Sheen held this position for three years before resigning and being made the Archbishop of the Titular See of Newport, Wales.
For 20 years he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour (1930–1950) before moving to television and presenting Life Is Worth Living (1951–1957). Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program (1961–1968) with a format very similar to that of the earlier Life is Worth Living show. For this work, Sheen won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality. Starting in 2009, his shows were being re-broadcast on the EWTN and the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Church Channel cable networks.[2] Due to his contribution to televised preaching Sheen is often referred to as one of the first televangelists.[3][4]
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Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, the oldest of four sons of Newton and Delia. Though he was known as Fulton, his mother's maiden name, he was baptized as Peter John Sheen.[5][1] As an infant, Sheen contracted tuberculosis.[6] After the family moved to nearby Peoria, Illinois, Sheen's first role in the Church was as an altar boy at St. Mary's Cathedral.[1][5]
After earning high school valedictorian honors at Spalding Institute in Peoria in 1913, Sheen was educated at St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois, attended Saint Paul Seminary in Minnesota before his ordination on September 20, 1919,[1] then followed that with further studies at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C..[5][7] His youthful appearance was still evident on one occasion when a local priest asked Sheen to assist as altar boy during the celebration of the Mass.[5]
Sheen earned a doctorate in philosophy at the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium in 1923.[7] While there, he became the first American ever to win the Cardinal Mercier award for the best philosophical treatise.[5]
Sheen was for a year assistant to the pastor at St. Patrick's Church, Soho Square in London while teaching theology at St. Edmund's College, Ware, where he met Ronald Knox. Although Oxford and Columbia wanted him to teach philosophy, in 1926 Bishop Edmund Dunne of Peoria, Illinois asked Sheen to take over St. Patrick's Parish. After nine months, Dunne returned him to Catholic University, where he taught philosophy until 1950.[8][5]
He was consecrated a bishop on June 11, 1951,[9] and served as an Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York from 1951 to 1965. The Principal Consecrator was the Discalced Carmelite Cardinal Adeodato Giovanni Piazza, the Cardinal-Bishop of Sabina e Poggio Mirteto and the Secretary of the Sacred Consistorial Congregation (what is today the Congregation for Bishops); the Cardinal had previously served as the Cardinal Patriarch of Venice, Italy). The Principal Co-Consecrators were Archbishop Leone Giovanni Battista Nigris, Titular Archbishop of Philippi and the Secretary of the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith (what is today the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples); and Archbishop Martin J. O'Connor, Titular Archbishop of Laodicea in Syria and President Emeritus of the Pontifical Council for Social Communications (O'Connor had been Rector of the Pontifical North American College).
| Styles of Fulton J. Sheen |
|
|---|---|
| Reference style | The Most Reverend |
| Spoken style | Your Excellency |
| Religious style | Your Excellency |
| Posthumous style | Servant of God |
A popular instructor, Sheen wrote the first of 73 books in 1925, and in 1930 began a weekly Sunday night radio broadcast, The Catholic Hour.[7] Two decades later, the broadcast had a weekly listening audience of four million people. Time referred to him in 1946 as "the golden-voiced Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, U.S. Catholicism's famed proselytizer" and reported that his radio broadcast received 3,000–6,000 letters weekly from listeners.[10] During the middle of this era, he conducted the first religious service broadcast on the new medium of television, putting in motion a new avenue for his religious pursuits.
In 1951 he began a weekly television program on the DuMont network, Life is Worth Living. Filmed at the Adelphi Theatre in New York City, the program consisted of the unpaid Sheen simply speaking in front of a live audience without a script or cue cards, often discussing the evils of "Darwin, Freud, Marx and Satan", occasionally using a chalkboard. The show, scheduled in a graveyard slot on Tuesday nights at 8:00 p.m., was not expected to challenge the ratings giants Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra, but did surprisingly well. Berle joked, "He uses old material, too", and observed that "[i]f I'm going to be eased off the top by anyone, it's better that I lose to the One for whom Bishop Sheen is speaking."[5] Sheen responded in jest that people should start calling him "Uncle Fultie".[11] Life and Time magazine ran feature stories on Bishop Sheen. The number of stations carrying Life is Worth Living jumped from three to fifteen in less than two months. There was fan mail that flowed in at a rate of 8,500 letters per week. There were four times as many requests for tickets than could be fulfilled. Admiral, the sponsor, paid the production costs in return for a one minute commercial at the opening of the show and another minute at the close. [12] In 1952, Sheen won an Emmy Award for his efforts,[13] accepting the acknowledgment by saying, "I feel it is time I pay tribute to my four writers—Matthew, Mark, Luke and John." Time called him "the first 'televangelist'", and the Archdiocese of New York could not meet the demand for tickets.[5]
One of his best-remembered presentations came in February 1953, when he forcefully denounced the Soviet regime of Joseph Stalin. Sheen gave a dramatic reading of the burial scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar, substituting the names of Caesar, Cassius, Mark Antony, and Brutus with those of prominent Soviet leaders Stalin, Lavrenty Beria, Georgy Malenkov, and Andrey Vyshinsky. He concluded by saying, "Stalin must one day meet his judgment." The dictator suffered a stroke a few days later and died within a week.[14]
The show ran until 1957, drawing as many as 30 million people on a weekly basis. In 1958, Sheen became national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, serving for eight years before being appointed Bishop of Rochester, New York, on October 26, 1966. He also hosted a nationally-syndicated series, The Fulton Sheen Program, from 1961 to 1968 (first in black and white and then in color). The format of this series was essentially the same as Life is Worth Living.
Sheen was credited with helping convert a number of notable figures to the Catholic faith, including agnostic writer Heywood Broun, politician Clare Boothe Luce, automaker Henry Ford II, Communist writer Louis F. Budenz, theatrical designer Jo Mielziner, violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler, and actress Virginia Mayo. Each conversion process took an average of 25 hours of lessons, and reportedly more than 95% of his students in private instruction were baptized.[5]
While serving in Rochester, he created the Sheen Ecumenical Housing Foundation, which survives to this day. He also spent some of his energy on political activities, such as his denunciation of the Vietnam War in late July 1967.[15] On October 15, 1969, one month after celebrating his 50th anniversary as a priest, Sheen resigned from his position and was then appointed Archbishop of the Titular See of Newport (Wales) by Pope Paul VI. This ceremonial position allowed Sheen to continue his extensive writing. Archbishop Sheen wrote 73 books and numerous articles and columns.[13]
On October 2, 1979, two months before Sheen's death, Pope John Paul II visited St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York City and embraced Sheen, saying, "You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus Christ. You are a loyal son of the Church."
Sheen died of heart disease on December 9, 1979.[13] He is buried in the crypt of St. Patrick's Cathedral, near the deceased Archbishops of New York. The official repository of Sheen's papers, television programs, and other materials is at St. Bernard's School of Theology and Ministry in Rochester, New York.[16]
The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation was formed in 1998 by Gregory J. Ladd and Lawrence F. Hickey to make known the life of the archbishop. The foundation approached Cardinal John O'Connor of the Archdiocese of New York for permission to commence the process of for cause, which was under the authority of the Diocese of Peoria.[2] In November 2010, it was announced that it was expected that the Archdiocese of New York would likely take over his cause for canonization upon an unsettled debate concerning the return of Sheen's remains to the Diocese of Peoria.[17]
In 2002, Sheen's Cause for Canonization as a saint was officially opened, and so he is now referred to as a "Servant of God".
On February 2, 2008, the archives of Archbishop Sheen were sealed at a ceremony during a special Mass at the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, Illinois, where the diocese is sponsoring his canonization.[13]
In 2009, the diocesan phase of the investigation came to an end, and the records were sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican in Rome for further investigation by a panel of prelates, other members, and consultors of the congregation. They will ultimately give a report and recommendation to the Congregation's Prefect, Cardinal Angelo Amato, who will forward his recommendations with their report to Pope Benedict XVI for a final decision as to whether he has lived the theological and ecclesiastical virtues.
Joseph Campanella introduces the re-runs of Sheen's various programs that are aired on EWTN. Reruns are also aired on Trinity Broadcasting Network. In addition to his television appearances, Archbishop Sheen can also be heard on Relevant Radio.
According to Catholic News Service and The Catholic Post (the official newspaper of the Peoria Diocese), the case of a boy who as an infant had no discernible pulse for 61 minutes (who was about to be declared dead at OSF Saint Francis Medical Center in Peoria, Illinois, as a stillborn infant) and yet allegedly still lived to be healthy – without physical or mental impairment – is in the preliminary stages of being investigated as the possible miracle needed for Archbishop Sheen's potential beatification. If the miracle is approved at the diocesan level, and then by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints at the Vatican (being both medically unexplainable and directly attributable theologically to Sheen's intercession according to expert panels in both subject areas), then beatification may proceed. Another such miracle would be required for him to be considered for canonization as a saint. On Wednesday, September 7, 2011, a tribunal of inquiry was sworn in to investigate the alleged healing. During a special Mass at 10:30AM on Sunday, December 11, 2011, at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria, the documentation gathered by the tribunal over nearly three months will be boxed and sealed. It will then be shipped to the Vatican for consideration by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, concluding the diocesan tribunal's work- which makes up much of the diocese's work on the project.[18]
| Stages of canonization in the Catholic Church |
|---|
| Servant of God → Venerable → Blessed → Saint |
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by James E. Kearney |
Bishop of Rochester 1966 – 1969 |
Succeeded by Joseph Lloyd Hogan |
| Catholic Church titles | ||
|---|---|---|
| Preceded by |
Archbishop of Newport 1969 – 1979 |
Succeeded by |