The young assistant pastor was a wonder.  By the time he came to St. Patrick’s church, he had met privately with Pope Pius XI, spoken at Cambridge, and preached in Paris. His doctoral dissertation on medieval philosopher and theologian, Thomas Aquinas, had been published in London and New York. A British reviewer described him as “as the new Catholic philosopher of the age.” But his climb to fame came to a halt in summer of 1926, when his bishop assigned him to a poor immigrant community in Peoria, Illinois. Parishioners later recalled a diminutive, youthful-looking cleric (one priest mistook him for an altar boy) who quietly went about his ministry, celebrated the sacraments, and attended to the sick and dying. More than anything else, however, they remembered his preaching.

Fulton J. Sheen was gifted with a golden tongue. A good student and a voracious reader, he was a champion high school debater, and was the valedictorian for his high school graduating class. A classmate recalled: “he had a wonderful memory and could talk.”

For a son of Irish immigrant parents, Sheen’s academic achievement was remarkable. Entering the seminary in 1913, he was ordained to the priesthood six years later, studied at the Catholic University of America America and subsequently was awarded honors at the prestigious University of Louvain in Belgium. Along the way, he became a personal friend of C.K. Chesterton, the famous English convert. His bishop, it was rumored, had sent the young priest to work in Peoria’s West End to keep him from becoming “too high hat.”

After eight months of parish ministry, he was sent to the Catholic University in Washington D.C. to teach Christian apologetics. Sheen had always shown a flair for language, (a colleague described them as “awesome… witty, incisive, even luminous.”), and he spent hours each day writing and rewriting his talks that would always delivered  standing without notes. The young priest was remarkably focused, rising early, and never socializing beyond 8 pm. He avoided alcohol, and ate sparingly.  Throughout his entire priestly life, Sheen began each day with an hour of private prayer before the Blessed Sacrament.

In 1930, the National Council of Catholic Men invited him to be a regular speaker on the “Catholic Hour,” an NBC Radio Network broadcast.  Largely because of Sheen, the program eventuallyattracted four million listeners a week. In recognition of his work, the Vatican elevated him to the rank of Papal Chamberlain in 1934, entitling him to wear a bishop’s purple sash and full-length cape, all of which he used to good effect in public appearances. By the end of the decade Sheen was delivering 150 addresses a year to various gatherings.

master at rendering difficult topics in understandable language, addressing themes such as “Natural Theology,” “The Modern Idea of God,” “The Philosophy of Science and Religion,” and “Social and Personal Freedom.” Catholics flocked to hear him. In fall 1940, he preached to over 120,000 worshippers in the Los Angeles Colosseum.  “His sermon was one of the three greatest addresses I have ever heard,” a reporter enthused.

Touring the world with New York Cardinal Francis Spellman in 1949, he was greeted by large crowds in Sydney, Singapore and Tokyo. In 1950, he was made an auxiliary bishop attached to the New York Archdiocese and appointed National Director of the Society of the Propagation of the Faith.  Across the next 16 years he collected more than $200,000,000 for hospitals, schools and churches in mission countries.

From 1952-1957 as many as 20,000,000 Americans a week – most of whom were not Catholics — tuned in to watch his 30-minute weekly television show, “Life is Worth Living.”  His talks, performed live and without notes or teleprompter, earned Sheen a 1953 Emmy Award as “Television’s Man of the Year” and his face appeared on the cover of Time Magazine.

When the Second Vatican Council began in October 1962, Fulton J. Sheen was regarded by many as the face and voice of American Catholicism. Yet his contribution to the Council was modest.  A philosopher by training, he was unfamiliar with the European scholarship that lay beneath the council’s documents on Liturgy and the Church, and Sheen struggled to adapt. A photograph of Sheen in the council hall shows him with pen in hand, with papers spread before him, intently following the proceedings.  Not until the end of the Council’s third year was, he comfortable enough to address the 2300 members of the council.

The talk was widely anticipated and when the gray-haired prelate approached the microphone, an observer wrote that “you could have heard a pin drop.” Sheen spoke in Latin, his voice rising and falling in graceful cadences accompanied by expressive gestures.  He spoke on the evangelization of poorer nations, a topic about which he cared deeply. “We live in a world,” Sheen declared, “in which 200 million people would willingly take the vow of poverty tomorrow, if they could live as well, eat as well, and be housed as well as I am. As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a church wounded by poverty could convert a doubting world.”  It was Sheen at his best, and the address received resounding applause.

Following the Council, Sheen served for a a short but stormy period as bishop of the Diocese of Rochester, New York. He was respected by the faithful, but unpopular with many clergy because of his princely manner. After a half-century of priesthood, he happily went into retirement in 1970. During his final years, he gave occasional sermons and completed his autobiography shortly before his death on December 9, 1979. His funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York was attended by over 150 bishops and thousands of worshippers. His books continue to be popular and today he is recognized as the greatest Catholic evangelist of the 20^th century.

Postscript:

Sheen’s cause for sainthood was introduced in 2000, and a little more than ten years later he was declared blessed by Pope Benedict XVI.  The Church, in its long history, has seen legions of great preachers, but few matched Fulton J. Sheen’s ability to touch hearts and inspire souls.