Bishop Baptized by Fulton Sheen Reflects On His Legacy Ahead of Beatification| National Catholic Register
As the Church prepares for the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen on Sept. 24 in St. Louis, the bishop of Rockville Centre, New York, is reflecting on the significance of the moment in a new pastoral letter, calling Catholics to rediscover Sheen’s witness to the missionary nature of the Church.
Bishop John O. Barres has a special connection to Sheen that goes back more than six decades: Sheen baptized Barres as an infant in 1960 at St. Augustine Church in Larchmont, New York — decades before Barres would become the bishop of the Long Island diocese.
In The Beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and the Mission of the Catholic Church in the 21st Century, Bishop Barres looks back at Sheen’s life, writings, pioneering use of radio and television, and reflects on how Sheen’s legacy still impacts the Church today.
Beginning with his personal connection to Sheen, Bishop Barres shares that his baptism — which took place on Oct. 2, 1960 — came during the time his father, Oliver Barres, was working for Sheen as a writer for the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, a Catholic organization dedicated to supporting the Church’s missionary work around the world. Sheen served as the organization’s national director from 1950 to 1966.
“When Archbishop Sheen baptized me at St. Augustine’s Church, I can only imagine his riveting voice saying, ‘I baptize you in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit,’ as he poured water over my head in the presence of my parents, godparents, four older sisters and family friends,” Barres writes in his pastoral letter.
He adds: “Providentially, Archbishop Sheen was not only baptizing me but, in a certain sense, sending me out as a future Successor of the Apostles and Diocesan Bishop on Catholic worldwide mission.”
The missionary nature of the Catholic Church
Looking to Sheen’s legacy, Bishop Barres says in his letter that every Catholic is called to mission and reflects on how Sheen embodied this call through his work, especially his use of technology.
Bishop Barres highlights a term Pope Leo XIV coined: “missionary conversion.” The Holy Father has called Catholics to be missionaries that are constantly open to “missionary conversion” — bringing the Gospel into their families, parishes, workplaces, institutions, and the wider secular world.
With this idea in mind, Bishop Barres points to Sheen’s ability to spread the Gospel through every medium available to him at the time.
“Whether speaking from a radio studio, standing before a television camera, teaching in a university classroom, or preaching from a pulpit, Archbishop Sheen’s message remained the same: Jesus Christ,” Bishop Barres says.
He adds that the beloved bishop had a “burning zeal for mission,” which was the “heart of his ministry.” These traits, he continues, “must be true of us.”
“Each of us must respond generously to our baptismal call to holiness and mission and become vibrant instruments of missionary conversion in the daily life and mission of the Church. Mission fields abound. Starting within the home, they encompass the globe,” Bishop Barres writes.
The bishop also suggests that Sheen would have embraced the emerging technologies of today, including artificial intelligence, but would insist these technologies not replace the human person.
Bishop Barres says: “Archbishop Sheen would have us turn with missionary boldness to this frontier and encourage us to use the emerging technologies of that world, including artificial intelligence, ethically and wherever they can serve the Church’s global mission. Yet he would never allow the means to eclipse the person.”
Therefore, Bishop Barres calls on Catholics to approach contemporary media with “confidence, creativity, seriousness, and charity,” bringing the fullness of the Gospel into the spaces where people communicate and encounter ideas.
The beauty of the priesthood
The second major theme Bishop Barres in his pastoral letter draws from Sheen is the priesthood. He points to works such as “The Priest Is Not His Own,” “Those Mysterious Priests,” and “Treasure in Clay,” in which Sheen reflected on the dignity, sacrifice, and struggles inherent in the priestly vocation.
One major point Bishop Barres reflects on is Sheen’s willingness to acknowledge his own human weaknesses, saying it is meaningful for priests and seminarians to see that a man ultimately recognized for his holiness also understood the struggles that priests face.
“The struggle between acrimony and a priestly spirit of humility and magnanimity occurs in every priest’s heart,” Bishop Barres shares. “It is nice to know that a bishop and priest soon-to-be beatified struggled with what priests and bishops struggle with every day. It reminds us holiness is possible.”
The second point he makes — which was a major aspect of Sheen’s theology — is considering the Catholic priest as the victim on the cross, united to Jesus.
“Only a priest who understands how an existential embrace of the Cross in all its mystery is critical to the living out of the ontological change that occurred in his being at his priestly ordination can embrace and live his priestly identity and mission,” Bishop Barres writes.
As Sheen’s beatification approaches, Bishop Barres says he sees it as an opportunity for priests to “rediscover his compelling vision of the priest as victim: one who is united with Christ not only as Shepherd but also as the Lamb who offers himself for the life of the flock.”
Additionally, Bishop Barres says he hopes Sheen’s intercession will help bring about “a new and creative Pentecost in Catholic missionary communications,” allowing Catholics to proclaim the faith with “renewed confidence, imagination, clarity, and love.”
Bishop Barres’ pastoral letter can be read in full here.
