The saints are always greater, because the Gospel is always greater. Greater than our usual categories, our customary ways of thinking. Archbishop Fulton Sheen was just that, as his beatification in St. Louis on Thursday illustrated. The homily of papal legate Cardinal Luis Tagle emphasized Blessed Fulton as a man animated by a special love for the poor, and with a passion for alleviating poverty.
Fulton Sheen was many things, so many things could be said about him – and many, many things were said in recent days. He was the imaginative evangelist, the mesmerizing preacher, the television star, the brilliant teacher, the penetrating philosopher, the faithful Eucharistic disciple, the priest who intimately knew the sacrifice he offered. He was still more, as the Catholic faith is always more.
Consider just one example. In July 1967, from his cathedral pulpit in Rochester, Blessed Fulton was the first American bishop to call for a withdrawal of American forces from Vietnam. That America’s most famous bishop was a staunch opponent of that calamitous war was the solvent to a potential stain on American Catholic history.
In October 1966, Sheen was appointed as bishop of Rochester, widely viewed as Cardinal Francis Spellman’s way
Read more...
