Cover image credit: The Catholic University of America
Before celebrity culture or content creation, he was cutting-edge in Catholic media, not for his own personality but to point people to Christ. His vintage Irish voice and stately stage presence reached millions on national television between 1950 and 1970, Catholics and non-Catholics alike, and his messages still circulate and captivate audiences today. The Emmy-winning, cape-wearing Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was “God’s microphone” during the golden age of television and is now the first American bishop to make his way to sainthood in the Catholic Church.
In just a few short weeks, the Catholic Church will declare Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen to be a “Blessed” with a special beatification Mass in the United States, in St. Louis, Missouri. American born and of Irish descent, Fulton J. Sheen was an educated man, an eloquent speaker, and an incredibly humble servant of the Lord. His teaching engaged with all facets of the culture, transforming hearts and minds during his life and still today.
Have you "met" Fulton Sheen yet? Here’s a glance at his life through important moments, lesser-known facts, and beloved photos.
1. Sheen's Original First Name Was Peter
He was born in 1895, the eldest of four boys born to Newton Sheen and Delia Fulton, and baptized with the name Peter. But as a young child, he spent so much time with his grandparents on his mother’s side that he quickly became known as “Fulton’s baby.” The name stuck, his mother’s maiden name becoming his new first name. With the addition of his confirmation name some years later, his full name was Fulton John Sheen.
Image Credit: ChurchPOP via fultonsheen.blogspot.com
2. A Rookie Altar Boy Moment Foretold His Vocation
In his autobiography, Archbishop Fulton Sheen recounts how his time around the altar began with a splash––quite literally. He was eight years old, serving Mass for Bishop John L. Spalding at St. Mary’s Cathedral in his hometown of Peoria, Illinois. He recounts:
“This particular morning, I dropped the wine cruet on the marble floor. There is no atomic explosion that can equal in intensity of decibels the noise and explosive force of a wine cruet falling on the marble floor of a cathedral in the presence of a bishop. I was frightened to death. What would the Bishop say?”
But in the sacristy after Mass, instead of a scolding, Bishop Spalding had a surprising insight into the future for this rookie altar boy. First, the bishop told him that one day, he would study at one of the greatest universities in the world, Louvain in Belgium. Secondly, he informed the boy that "someday you will be just as I am."
Image Credit: ChurchPOP via fultonsheen.blogspot.com
3. His First Times Speaking In Public Were A Rough Start
While studying at St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Illinois, Sheen joined the debate team as a freshman. The night before a big debate against Notre Dame University, his school's debate coach gave him some blunt feedback: “Sheen, you’re absolutely the worst speaker I ever heard.” He assigned Sheen to stand in a corner and repeat one paragraph from his prepared speech for an hour.
It wasn’t the finest start for him as a public speaker, but it proved an important one. Sheen resolved to become one of the best, and he did. St. Viator College won that debate against the University of Notre Dame, and Sheen’s voice would later thunder with enthusiasm for the truth on his telecasts.
Image Credit: The Chicago Tribune
4. He Was Consistently At The Top Of His Class.
Archbishop Sheen graduated high school as Valedictorian of his class. After seminary and ordination, he completed his Ph.D. in philosophy at the University of Louvain in Belgium, fulfilling what Bishop Spalding had predicted in the cathedral sacristy all those years ago.
At Louvain, he earned the highest degree possible––the Agrégé––inaugurating him into the faculty there. He not only passed the requirements for the degree, but passed at the highest level. He recounts the story in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay.
“That night, the university would give a dinner to the successful candidate and induct him into the faculty. If you passed with Satisfaction only water could be served at the dinner; if with Distinction, beer; if with Great Distinction, wine; and the Very Highest Distinction, champagne.”
Then, he leaps straight to the point:
“The Champagne tasted so good that night!”
5. He Was A Fan of C.S. Lewis and G.K. Chesterton
In his autobiography, Archbishop Sheen shares the list of authors who most inspired his writing style. He called G.K. Chesterton the greatest inspiration to him, for being someone "who never used a useless word, who saw the value of a paradox and avoided what was trite." C.S. Lewis became an inspiration to him later on, too.
Sheen's typical reading fare included a variety of literature (although never novels), science, politics, philosophy, and most importantly, Scripture and commentaries for understanding it. He firmly believed that being a good preacher and teacher required frequent study and reading.
Image Credit: The Chicago Tribune
6. The Classroom Where He Taught for Years is Dedicated to Him
During his life, Archbishop Sheen spent almost 25 years teaching in the School of Philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington D.C.
In 2015, the Catholic University of America dedicated one of the classrooms where Archbishop Sheen taught. It’s room 112 in McMahon Hall, the second oldest building on campus located right next to America’s famous Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception. A plaque outside the room indicates the important designation.
7. He Spent At Least One Hour Preparing For Every Minute On Screen
No teleprompter or notecards. Only a blackboard, “magically” erased off-screen by someone whom he called his angel, and his classic “JMJ” inscription at the top for “Jesus, Mary, Joseph.” But his secret to success was spending up to 35 hours preparing for each 28-minute broadcast, learning everything inside-out and upside-down. He even practiced by presenting the material in other languages to his friends.
As a professor, Sheen showed up the same way, always spending at least six hours preparing for each lecture he taught. “A teacher who does not himself learn is no teacher,” he believed––and he lived it. Following advice he was given, he tore up his notes at the end of every academic year and prepared each course again from scratch.
Image credit: The Catholic University of America
8. This Familiar Rosary Design Comes From Him
Archbishop Sheen had a heart for the missions. While serving as National Director for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, he designed the multicolored world missionary rosary. The Archbishop encouraged people to pray it to “aid the Holy Father and his Society for the Propagation of the Faith by supplying him with practical support, as well as prayers, for the poor mission territories of the world.”
Each decade on the world missionary rosary is dedicated to a different continent of the world with colors that represent them:
Green for the forests and grasslands of Africa
Blue for Oceania
Red for the Americas, evangelized by missionaries who were on fire with the Catholic faith
White for Europe because it is where the Pope in white lives
Yellow for Asia, in the East, the land of the rising sun.
Image Credit: The Propagation of the Faith via The Boston Pilot
9. Of All The Photos Taken Of Him, This One (Below) Was His Favorite
Archbishop Sheen traveled extensively, but the Holy Land was one of the three places most dear to his heart. He went there twice, and in his autobiography, he speaks about the second trip he made, accompanied by his two grandnephews and the photographer Yousuf Karsh. The Archbishop shares about the reflections that filled his heart as he spent time at the Basilica of Christ's Nativity, at the Jordan River, in the synagogue, and in Nazareth.
But one incredibly special moment in his trip took place at the Sea of Galilee, and resulted in what he called "the favorite picture of my life." Sheen was meditating on the conversation between Christ and St. Peter that took place by this same sea (when the Lord asks Peter to feed his lambs and tend his sheep) when a shepherd came to him and put a three year old lamb in his arms. The photograph (below) was a moment that Sheen treasured, "an unworthy shepherd holding a precious lamb in his arms."
Image Credit: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation
10. His Archdiocese Was Actually Across the Ocean
Not many people know this one. After he was ordained a bishop in 1951, Sheen was first an auxiliary bishop for the Archdiocese of New York in New York City, then named Bishop of Rochester, New York, in 1966.
He received an upgrade in title when Pope Paul VI named him Archbishop of the titular see of Newport, Wales (a country within the United Kingdom, adjacent to England) in 1969. Although he did not actively govern this diocese, the title of Archbishop was nonetheless his.
11. His Favorite Pilgrimage Place Was Lourdes
“Lourdes is a place of faith,” he said, and it was a Marian pilgrimage he made over 30 times, whenever he was in Europe. On his first visit, as a university student in Belgium, he had only enough funds for the train trip. It was his 5th anniversary of ordination and his faith was great, but he arrived in Lourdes penniless.
“I decided that if the Blessed Mother was going to pay my hotel bill, she could just as well pay a big one as a little one,” he recounts.
So, Sheen booked a room at one of the finest hotels nearby. On the ninth and last day of his visit, no funds had turned up. But later that night, he met an American gentleman who requested that he accompany his family to Paris as tour guide, then asked, “Have you paid your hotel bill yet?”
Archbishop Sheen spoke and wrote about Mary often, publishing an entire book on her called The World’s First Love. Fittingly, Archbishop Sheen now is buried beneath an altar dedicated to Our Lady of Perpetual Help.
“As the mother knows the needs better than the babe, so the Blessed Mother understands our cries and worries and knows them better than we know ourselves.”
Image credit: CatholicShop.com
12. He Became More Popular Than Frank Sinatra
And everyone knows Frank Sinatra, so that says a lot––but truth, not theater, was what the people wanted on Tuesday night TV in the 1950’s. After a very successful 20 years on the radio, Archbishop Sheen began on television in 1952.
His show “Life is Worth Living” had up to 10 million views weekly, incredible popularity for an intellectual show. Americans––Catholic and non-Catholic alike––chose to watch the archbishop over other primetime personalities like singer Frank Sinatra and comedian Milton Berle. In the words of Loretta Young––a major Hollywood star, devout Catholic, and friend of Archbishop Sheen––he was “the greatest actor of our time.”
It didn’t take a song or dance for Hollywood to agree. In 1953, Archbishop Sheen won an Emmy award for “Most Outstanding TV Personality,” chosen over major stars including Lucille Ball, Edward R. Murrow, Jimmy Durante, and Arthur Godfrey. His acceptance speech? "I would like to thank my four writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John."
Image: Archbishop Sheen’s Emmy Award | Credit: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation
13. His Last Public Moment Was a Beautiful Interaction With Pope John Paul II
“Where is Archbishop Sheen?”
That’s what Pope John Paul II asked while standing in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in 1979 during his first papal visit to the United States. Archbishop Sheen, nearing his last days, was somewhere towards the back of the group of prelates gathered in the sanctuary to welcome the Holy Father.
The feeble Archbishop Sheen came forward to the Holy Father and fell to his knees, but the pope raised him to his feet and embraced him warmly. “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the Church," the Pope told the Archbishop, words that sounded very much like Christ's to St. Thomas Aquinas.
Image credit: the Archbishop Sheen Foundation via the National Catholic Register
14. He Died As He Lived: In Front Of Jesus In The Eucharist
Only two months after that moving moment with Pope John Paul II, the Lord called Archbishop Fulton Sheen to eternity on December 9, 1979. Reports say he died in his private chapel before the Blessed Sacrament, a fitting place for the Lord to find him. His daily Holy Hours (the commitment of his ordination day) were a zealously guarded time in his day, and he prepared all his sermons in the presence of Jesus in the Eucharist as well.
15. You Can Visit His Tomb In Illinois
Although the Archbishop's will specified one burial location, and Cardinal Cooke of New York wished to bury him in the crypt of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Sheen’s final resting place was confirmed in 2019. His body was brought to the Midwestern ground of his childhood. He is buried in Peoria, Illinois, where he grew up, halfway between St. Louis and Chicago.
Today, Catholics can pray at Archbishop Sheen's remains in a side alcove chapel at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria. This church was his home parish, where he altar served (and yes, dropped that wine cruet during Mass with the Bishop), received his First Holy Communion, and was ordained a priest.
Image Credit: Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation
Bonus Fact: The Surprising Seminary Connection Behind Sheen And Another Catholic Media Priest
Archbishop Sheen studied at St. Paul’s Seminary in Minnesota for two years before his ordination to the priesthood in 1919. He’ll be the first alumnus of this seminary to be beatified.
Many decades later, another priest and graduate of St. Paul's Seminary also rose in Catholic media for his podcasts, broadcast homilies, and many, many videos on Ascension Presents. It's as if Archbishop Fulton Sheen passed the torch––or rather, the microphone––to Fr. Mike Schmitz!
1 comment
Thank you for this inspiring capsule of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’ life! My life was blessed richly through his lovingly deep insights as a little girl watching Life is Worth Living with my parents & Grandmother & during both my 4 years at School of the Holy Child in Rye, NY & the next 4 years at Rosemont College ( of the Holy Child) in Rosemont, PA where He was our retreat director often!
Bishop Sheen allowed Jesus to use every cell in his body & every thought in his mind. Whether he was walking in the gardens or having dinner with the girls in the Sodality, or celebrating the Mass, or teaching us, you knew Jesus’ smile was lighting his face with His Own Holy Divine Love. Thank you for the memory.