I am writing within the octave of the beatification of Fulton J. Sheen, and find myself still basking in the glow of that blessed and long-awaited event, which had many personal associations for me.
As a schoolboy, I was quizzed every Wednesday morning by Sister, who routinely would ask the class, “What did ‘The Bishop’ say last night?” (In those days “The Bishop” didn’t mean the local Ordinary, but Sheen!).
In third grade, he autographed my First Holy Communion prayer book, declaring to my father, “Sir, someday this young man is going to be a priest.” On the brink of priestly ordination, I wrote him a note confirming his “prophecy” of nearly two decades earlier, to which he graciously responded with a promise of prayers and best wishes for my priestly life and ministry. I concelebrated his Funeral Mass.
The recent event in St. Louis was a veritable tour de force, worthy of the man who was a first-order clerical showman, in the best sense of the word. What impressed me most was the youthfulness of it all. One thousand priests (95 percent of whom were not even born when Sheen died) and 850 seminarians in cassock and surplice, along
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