Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

The Voice of Catholic America

Fulton John Sheen was born on May 8, 1895, in El Paso, Illinois, and raised in Peoria. Ordained in 1919, he quickly became one of the most gifted preachers in the American Church. He earned advanced degrees in philosophy from the Catholic University of America and the University of Louvain in Belgium, where his brilliance drew the attention of Rome.

In 1930, Sheen began The Catholic Hour on NBC Radio, a weekly broadcast that reached an estimated four million listeners. By 1952, he had moved to television with Life Is Worth Living, a prime-time show on the DuMont Network that competed directly with Milton Berle, and often won. Armed only with a chalkboard and his magnetic personality, Sheen made Catholic teaching accessible and compelling to a mass audience. He won an Emmy Award and was watched by up to thirty million viewers weekly.

Beyond broadcasting, Sheen was a tireless evangelist who brought countless souls into the Church, including prominent converts. He was a devoted practitioner of the daily Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament, a practice he credited as the source of his spiritual power. As national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, he raised millions for missions worldwide.

Appointed Bishop of Rochester in 1966, Sheen navigated the turbulent post-Vatican II era with characteristic grace. He retired in 1969 and spent his final decade writing and preaching. Weeks before his death, Pope John Paul II embraced him at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, saying, “You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus Christ.” He died on December 9, 1979. His cause was opened in 2002, and he was declared Venerable in 2012.

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