The Life and Sanctity of Fulton J. Sheen

Every time I see that the Holy Father is going to canonize people, I usually check to see if their names are Italian. Most of them seem to be. The Italians should be proud that they have such a long list of venerable saints. Very rarely is an American ever thrown into the mix. Just because someone is not canonized, however, doesn’t mean they didn’t live a holy life. Nor does it mean we can’t learn anything from them.

Such is the case of Fulton J. Sheen - a man on his way to formal canonization - whose life we can learn much from. In what follows, I have tried my best to give a brief summary of Sheen’s life from his upbringing on a farm in Peoria, IL to the Cathedral of St. Patrick’s in New York. Along the way, however, I will discuss certain aspects of Sheen’s life of sanctity. I conclude by asking the reader to ponder some reflection questions about what he or she can do in his or her own life to grow in holiness in imitation of Sheen, which is ultimately an imitation of Christ.

Education and Ordination
Fulton J. Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, on May 8, 1895 to Newton and Delia Sheen. The Sheen family was distinctly Irish. Thomas Reeves explains that many of their grandparents and parents had come to America during the Great Famine in Ireland from 1846-1851 and moved to farming in the Midwest, especially in Central Illinois.¹ Fulton was baptized as Peter John Sheen, but soon after became known by his mother’s maiden name: Fulton. As a baby, Peter would often cry because he suffered from tuberculosis. Because of this, he spent a good deal of time with his grandparents, the Fultons and became know as “Fulton's Baby.”²
After his father's hardware store burned down in an accident, Newton moved his family to a farm outside of Peoria, Illinois. This is where Fulton would spend the majority of his childhood. From an early age, however, it was clear that farm work did not satisfy him. He recounts what one of his neighbors said to his father about him: “'Newt, that oldest boy of yours, Fulton, will never be worth a damn. He's always got his nose in a book.' My brothers enjoyed farm work; I suffered it.”³ Fulton much preferred the intellectual pursuits more than that of manual labor, though he still retained a great respect and admiration for those involved in such labor throughout his life.

The most famous story of Sheen's initial and prophetic call to the priesthood comes from his own autobiography in which he describes serving for Bishop John L. Spalding. Only eight years old, Sheen was serving Mass for Bishop Spalding and accidentally dropped a wine cruet on the floor and it shattered. He writes “There is no atomic explosion that can equal in intensity of decibels the noise and explosive force of a wine cruet falling on the marble floor of a cathedral in the presence of a bishop. I was frightened to death.”⁴ After the Mass, Bishop Spalding spoke to the frightened boy and made two bold predictions about him. First, the bishop said he would one day study at Louvain in Belgium; second, he told the young Sheen, "Someday you will be just as I am, a bishop." Sheen went on to go to high school at the Spalding Institute (named after the same prophetic Bishop) and graduated top of his class.

Fulton then went on to college and feeling a strong call to the priesthood, was advised to enter the seminary. D.P. Noonan notes that even in college, Sheen showed his love for academics: “Sheen went to St. Viator's College, Bourbonnais, Illinos. He was an excellent student who was not given to sports, although in later life he became a great devotee of tennis. He was involved in the undergraduate program and was a frequent contributor to the college magazine.”⁵ St. Viator's College also doubled as a seminary where Sheen received his earliest priestly formation. It was also at St. Viator's that Sheen joined the debate team and obtained great instruction from the speech coach Fr. William J. Bergan.⁶

From here, Fulton was sent to St. Paul Seminary in St. Paul Minnesota to continue his studies for the priesthood. As usual, Sheen excelled in his academics. On September 20, 1919, he was ordained to the priesthood. After his ordination, Fulton made two vows: “I would offer the Holy Eucharist every Saturday in honor of the Blessed Mother to solicit her protection on my priesthood...I resolved also to spend a continuous Holy Hour every day in the presence of Our Lord in the Blessed Sacrament.⁷ Sheen kept these promises for the rest of his life.

Throughout his life, he would often recommend that people develope a strong devotion to Mary, especially encouraging them to pray the Rosary and even writing a couple of small pamphlets on it. When he was a baby, his mother dedicated him, on the day of his Baptism to the Blessed Mother. He writes about his consecration, “As an infant may be unconscious of a birthmark, so I was unconscious of the dedication-but the mark was always there...I was drawn to her like a magnet, I was drawn to her before I knew her, but never drawn to her without Christ.”⁸ His Marian devotion is also seen in that he dedicated all of his published books to her. Other proofs, though unneeded, would also include his inscription of JMJ whenever he used his famous blackboard during Life is Worth Living, which stood for Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.