ALL SAINTS CELEBRATED IN DECEMBER
Saints celebrated on the 9th of December
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BLESSED FULTON SHEEN, ARCHBISHOP
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| Blessed Fulton Sheen - 📷 OSV News |
Fulton Sheen was born on May 8, 1895 in El Paso, above the hardware store run by his father. He was a son of Newton Morris and Delia Fulton Sheen. The archbishop was baptized Peter Sheen, and he took the name John at confirmation. Some time later adopted his mother's maiden name. He is the first American beatified who hosted major television and radio programmes. Blessed Fulton’s famous television series, Life Is Worth Living, launched in 1952, just months after he was consecrated a bishop. His magnetic personality and presentations quickly drew millions of viewers - an estimated 30 million each week; even Protestants and Jews tuned in - quickly making him a household name. Happy viewers sent in more than 8,000 letters a week to the station.
Archbishop Sheen shocked the entertainment industry by beating American legends like Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra in weekly ratings, winning an Emmy award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, and appearing on the cover of Time Magazine. Accepting his Emmy award in 1953, with his signature humour, he said, "It is time I pay tribute to my four writers - Matthew, Mark, Luke and John."
Blessed Fulton was devoted to the priesthood with all his heart and soul. "I have no earlier recollections than a desire to be a priest," he once said. He had been ordained a priest in Peoria on September 20, 1919, followed by graduate work at the Catholic University of America in Washington. Afterwards he went to the University of Louvain in Belgium, where he became the first American to be awarded the Cardinal Mercier prize for international philosophy. He also attended Angelico University in Rome. After another year of study in Belgium, he worked as a priest at Saint Patrick's Church, Soho, London, for one year before returning to Peoria in 1926 to serve as a parish priest. Later that year he left Peoria to join the philosophy faculty at the Catholic University of America, where he taught until 1950.
In 1934, Blessed Fulton was named a Papal Chamberlain of Pope Pius XI with the title of very reverend monsignor. Two years later, Pius XI made him a Domestic Prelate with the title of right reverend monsignor.
In 1950, Blessed Fulton began a new responsibility as the National Director of the Propagation of the Faith and was appointed an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He worked tirelessly not only to raise money to support the missions, but he also visited the remote areas where the Church was growing to bring the message of the faith to foreign lands. In his work in the Propagation of the Faith, Blessed Fulton considered it a privilege to be able to minister to the whole world.
On October 21, 1966, Pope Paul VI named Blessed Fulton as bishop of Rochester. While serving in Rochester, Blessed Fulton created the Sheen Ecumenical Housing Foundation. In 1967, Blessed Fulton urged that then-President Lyndon Johnson unilaterally withdraw U.S. troops from Vietnam. The next year, he touched off a howl of protest among some people in the church when he offered a complete parish church and other buildings for use in housing the poor.
On October 6, 1969, he retired and resigned as bishop of Rochester. Pope Paul VI then named him as archbishop of the titular see of Newport, Wales. Soon after, Blessed Fulton moved from Rochester to New York in 1969. From now on, he devoted even more time to his extensive writing. During his lifetime, Blessed Fulton wrote 73 books and countless articles and columns. For the 75th anniversary of Spalding Academy in October 1972 he returned to Peoria, and visited Peoria for the last time in 1977 to receive the Order of Lincoln Award, which is the state's highest honour.
Blessed Fulton went to his eternal reward on December 9, 1979 - while praying in his private chapel at his home on Manhattan's upper East Side - after a long battle with heart disease.
Throughout his priesthood, Blessed Fulton placed prayer at the centre of his apostolate. His commitment to a daily Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament became one of the defining practices of his spiritual life. He regarded this period of prayer as essential to his priestly identity and to the fruitfulness of his ministry. He maintained a daily Holy Hour before the Eucharist since the day of his priesthood ordination. His prayer, which he described as "the hour that makes my day," was the source of his profound insight into the Gospel and the person of Jesus Christ. Blessed Fulton was a public preacher who spoke courageously about Jesus, but only after first listening to him privately in prayer before the Eucharist.
PRAYER:
May the intercession of Blessed Fulton commend us to you, so that through his merits we may obtain that which we cannot accomplish by our own. Through our Lord Jesus Christ, your Son, who lives and reigns with you in the unity of the Holy Spirit, God, for ever and ever. Amen.
Sources: - https://www.ncregister.com/news/11-key-facts-to-know-about-fulton-sheen?amp - http://www.allendrake.com/elpasohistory/sheen/shnpan1.htm - https://www.britannica.com/biography/Fulton-J-Sheen - https://www.stpatricksoho.org/history - https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-statements/2026/09/presidential-message-on-the-beatification-of-archbishop-fulton-j-sheen/ - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulton_J._Sheen - https://www.vaticannews.va/en/church/news/2026-09/who-was-archbishop-fulton-sheen-jason-gray-beatification.html
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