Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Convert Maker
By Cheryl C.D. Hughes
Ignatius Press, 2024
310 pages; $19.95
To order: Ignatius.com or (800) 651-1531
Bella Dodd might not be a household name, but as a top-echelon member of the Communist Party working in the United States in the 1950s and 1960s, she ultimately left the party and converted to Catholicism — thanks to Bishop Fulton Sheen. So did writer and congresswoman Clare Boothe Luce. And communist organizer Louis Budenz also returned to the faith.
So did many others — to the tune of more than 42,000 souls. So estimates the new book Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, Convert Maker by Cheryl C.D. Hughes.
Sheen never met many of the likely tens of thousands more who converted or returned to the Catholic Church under his influence.
Fascinating and unusual facts about Bishop Sheen fill the pages to form a vivid portrait about how he lived to bring souls to Christ and the breadth of his devotion to Blessed Mother and how she was part of his mission — the list goes on. Here are seven to look forward to as you read:
Generous Beyond Imagining
As fast as money flowed in, out it would go to those in need. For example, when on his radio shows Sheen asked for dimes for the missions, thousands of dollars in change would arrive, even taped to envelopes. Children mailed pennies. When he began appearing on television, the donations increased — as well as the money he was able to give away. And not only to the missions.
One example: After he met and helped a couple in France, they kept in touch. When the wife died, she left Sheen more than $68,000. Most of it went toward the Sisters of Mercy’s St. Martin de Porres Hospital, a maternity hospital for Black women in Mobile, Alabama. When it was renovated and enlarged, Sheen raised and donated most of the $600,000 cost. (It is now closed.)
For years, he sent his book royalties and speaker’s fees to Archbishop Thomas Toolen for the Black communities in what was then the Mobile-Birmingham Diocese. It was well known that every cent Sheen received while speaking weekly to an estimated four million listeners on The Catholic Hour radio program for more than 20 years was always turned over to the National Council of Catholic Men.
There was no limit to his generosity, including to countless individuals like Paul Scott, a leper left disfigured. Sheen “took him into his care,” got him an apartment and often invited him to dinner. Paul eventually became Catholic.
Converts, Ordinary and Famous
Among the famous, and infamous, who became converts through Sheen’s instruction might not be household names today as they once were. But included in the book are the highly detailed stories of their lives — from Boothe Luce and Bella Dodd to violinist and composer Fritz Kreisler and Hollywood actress Virginia Mayo. It is fascinating to discover how, through Sheen, they came to either convert or return to the Catholic faith.
And there were those countless unnamed souls over the decades who did the same, both before and after Sheen was ordained a bishop in 1951.
Millions listed to him regularly on The Catholic Hour radio show. Millions more watched and listened to him on his TV program Life Is Worth Living. As tens of thousands wrote in for more information, Sheen sent them pamphlets and books. One single banner day, 30,000-plus letters came to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Sheen insisted all of them be answered.
He was always willing to meet with people interested in the faith. He met with them “in large church halls or Catholic school auditoriums,” Hughes writes. “As he had always maintained, he would meet converts wherever he found them.”
Many people wrote telling him that they converted to the Catholic Church or returned to it by something he said or did.
“Never once was there an attempt at what might be called proselytizing,” Hughes writes, noting that Sheen would “just lay out the truths of the faith and let God do the rest at the invitation of the individual” because “God would never force himself on a person. A conversion was at the grace of God and the will of the individual.”
“It was this keen concern for the common person, with all questions, cheerfully answered, that endeared Sheen to so many people and drew prospective converts. People did not have to meet him personally to feel connected to him and moved by his holiness.”
Preparation and Admiration
Sheen worked 19 hours a day. For his television show appearances, he did not memorize his material and never used notes. “He mastered it by meticulous preparation,” trying it out in three languages. The only fixed part of the program was its conclusion: “God love you.”
Comedians like Milton Berle, Bob Hope, and Jackie Gleason adored Sheen, “appreciated his humor” and would “often sit in the production booth during his shows just to watch him.”
Foe of Communism
In 1935, Pius XI directed Sheen “to speak out against communism. Sheen’s attack was spiritual because he saw Communism as a religion,” the book explains. Sheen, an expert on communism, fought it zealously. He attacked it as a serious threat to the United States and democracy: “[A]nticommunism was one of his favorite topics.” How he converted fallen-away Catholic and top communist Budenz is told in detail.
“The twin evils besetting society in the West were communism and secularism, with the latter of the two being the most dangerous in Sheen’s mind,” Hughes writes, going on to explain why Sheen saw the latter as more dangerous.
A Major Sheen Love
When made a bishop, Sheen chose as his motto, “To Jesus through Mary.” He said his favorite book of the more than 60 he wrote was about the Blessed Mother, The World’s First Love. He called the statue of Madonna and Child seen on his TV show “Our Lady of Television.” On his many trips to Europe, he always visited Lourdes, a shrine that had a very special place in his heart beginning when he was a young student in Europe.
“The Virgin Mary to Fulton Sheen was the embodiment of the perfection of womanhood,” Hughes writes. “His affection for the mother of Jesus and the truth, beauty, and goodness he found in her, spilled over into his estimation of all women.”
“The history of civilization could actually be written in the terms of the level of its women,” he taught.
Sheen Surprises
When it came to writing, Bishop Sheen specifically credited G. K. Chesterton as the greatest influence on his writing style. “Chesterton, ‘never used the useless word and saw the value of a paradox and avoided what was trite.’” For Sheen’s first book in 1925, God and Intelligence in Modern Philosophy, none other than Chesterton wrote the introduction, obviously impressed after meeting Sheen, who was teaching dogmatic theology at St. Edmund’s College at Cambridge. Sheen loved poetry and “committed many to memory, recited them at will for good effect.” His span of knowledge “was encyclopedic, but his love of God was what drove him throughout his long career.”
Hughes adds glimpses of Sheen’s major role during the Second Vatican Council and his support for it — plus his attitude toward some of the wayward implementations, like stripped-down churches and nuns “abandoning their habits.” Sheen, allowed to be biliturgical, could “say Mass in English in Eastern Rite Catholic churches, the first American priest to do so.” Notably, he was always optimistic about the Church.
One and Only
In assessing Fulton Sheen, Hughes has the perfect answer. “There can never be another Fulton J. Sheen,” she writes. “He remains a towering figure in American Catholicism.” And ultimately a modest one. He is quoted as saying: “God does not love us because we are valuable; we are valuable because he loves us.”
