Fulton J. Sheen

Fulton Sheen was born Peter John Sheen in El Paso, Illinois, the oldest of four sons of a hardware-store owner and a devout Catholic mother, and he survived tuberculosis as an infant. He graduated valedictorian of his high school class, went through St. Viator College and the seminary, and was ordained a priest for the Diocese of Peoria on September 20, 1919. Sent to Europe for graduate work, he earned a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain in 1923 and won the Cardinal Mercier Prize for international philosophy, the first American to take it. He spent the next two decades teaching philosophy and theology at Catholic University in Washington, an academic on a track toward tenure and little else, before a radio program changed what he was for.

He built a national audience over decades: The Catholic Hour on NBC radio from 1930, reaching some four million listeners and thousands of letters a week by 1950, then Life Is Worth Living, a live, unscripted television program that premiered on February 12, 1952, and at its peak drew some thirty million viewers a week, most not Catholic. It ran opposite Frank Sinatra's variety hour, which was canceled within the year, and Sheen won the 1952 Emmy for Most Outstanding Television Personality, thanking his four writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John, in his acceptance speech. He wrote 73 books, served as national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and was made an auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951, all while personally instructing converts, reportedly including automaker Henry Ford II, into the Church.

Sheen's fall from the platform he built came from inside the Church. In the late 1950s, Cardinal Francis Spellman tried to make Sheen's mission office repay the Archdiocese of New York for donated federal milk Sheen had distributed abroad — Sheen refused, appealed directly to Pope Pius XII, and won, and Spellman told him he would get even if it took ten years. Accounts of the feud agree Spellman had a hand in moving Sheen from the national pulpit to the Diocese of Rochester in 1966, a smaller post far from cameras, and the two never spoke of it again. Decades later, in December 2019, his beatification was postponed after a report raised questions about a priest once linked to his tenure — the Diocese of Peoria said the assignment had been made by his successor and that Sheen had been cleared.

He died in Manhattan on December 9, 1979, after heart surgery, found by aides praying in his private chapel. His body went first to a crypt at St. Patrick's Cathedral, and after a legal fight between the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Peoria over where he belonged, moved to the Peoria cathedral in 2019. The Vatican named him Venerable in 2012 and approved a miracle attributed to his intercession in 2019, and his twice-delayed beatification is now scheduled for September 2026. His broadcasts still air on EWTN, and a cultural center in lower Manhattan carries his name.

Fulton J. Sheen's life against the full span of the corpus.

• The Catholic Hour other
  NBC radio program reaching some four million weekly listeners by 1950 1930
• Life Is Worth Living television
  Unscripted DuMont program that drew up to 30 million weekly viewers 1952
• The Fulton Sheen Program television
  Nationally syndicated successor series, ran through 1968 1961
• Treasure in Clay book
  Autobiography, completed and dictated from his sickbed before his death 1980

• May 8, 1895 aged 0 Born in El Paso, Illinois
• September 20, 1919 aged 24 Ordained a priest for the Diocese of Peoria
• 1923 aged ~28 Earns a doctorate from the Catholic University of Louvain, winning the Cardinal Mercier Prize
• 1930 aged ~35 Begins hosting The Catholic Hour on NBC radio
• May 28, 1951 aged 56 Named auxiliary bishop of New York
• February 12, 1952 aged 56 Premieres Life Is Worth Living on DuMont Television
• October 21, 1966 aged 71 Named Bishop of Rochester, ending his national broadcast platform
• December 9, 1979 aged 84 Dies in New York after heart surgery
• December 3, 2019 His beatification is postponed amid a report on clergy sexual abuse in the diocese The Diocese of Peoria said the priest in question had been assigned by Sheen's successor.

• Frank Sinatra 1915–1998
  Crooner and actor whose voice and charisma made him one of the best-selling music artists of all time. his variety show was canceled after losing the ratings race
• Henry Luce 1898–1967
  Magazine publisher whose Time — Life and Fortune defined mid-century American newsweekly formats. profiled Sheen on the cover of Time in 1952