Archbishop Fulton Sheen was a “Catholic influencer” before influencers were even a thing.
An Emmy‑winning TV star, he pioneered Catholic media evangelization in the golden age of television, and just might be the future patron saint of Catholic content creators.
In the 1950s and 60s, Archbishop Sheen was one of the biggest names on primetime TV, and his show is often cited as the most widely watched religious series in history. Week after week, his catechesis reached an estimated 10–30 million viewers. His sainthood cause even highlights “new evangelization through mass media” as a key part of his path to holiness.
Here you have 12 things to know about Archbishop Fulton Sheen:1) His birth name wasn’t Fulton.
He was baptized Peter John Sheen in 1895 in El Paso, Illinois; “Fulton” was his mother’s maiden name and later became the name the world knew him by. He was born on May 8, 1895, the eldest of four sons of Newton and Delia (Fulton) Sheen, on a farm near El Paso, Illinois. He grew up in a small Midwestern farm family and went on to become one of the most widely heard Catholic preachers in the world.
2) The Catholic bishop who beat Hollywood
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