In our September issue, Rachel Lu examined the influence of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, scheduled to be beatified on Sept. 24 in St. Louis, on Catholicism in the United States. Perhaps the unlikeliest star of 1950s television, Sheen demonstrated to both Catholics and non-Catholics that the church could “fit harmoniously into the American tradition” and that “freedom and faith were allies, not competitors.” But Ms. Lu concluded by wondering if Sheen’s optimistic message is getting lost in today’s culture wars and flirtations with illiberalism. Our readers shared memories of watching Sheen and also wondered what he would make of contemporary politics.

My parents (a culturally Jewish father and a Protestant mother) were regular viewers of Bishop Sheen. I was in elementary school and remember the show, but not many details. In 1967, when he was bishop of Rochester, N.Y., he came to the University of Rochester, where I was a student. I will never forget his piercing eyes; it felt like he was looking into my soul.
Lloyd William

As a small Protestant Canadian child I watched Bishop Sheen quite frequently. I was mesmerized by his manner and by what he said about Jesus. He was really my first contact with the Roman Catholic expression of the Christian faith and about 40 years later I was welcomed into the Catholic Church. I am so grateful!
Lynda Clayton

God bless Fulton Sheen, a brilliant orator and Thomistic thinker. He presented St. Thomas Aquinas’s thought to a popular audience extremely well. Thomism was everywhere in the era: outlines for sermons (not homilies), theology and philosophy in colleges and seminaries. But the bishops of the Vatican Council—in which he participated—urged us back to the sources: the Bible and the early thinkers of the church. He was not prepared to adapt to the old ways. I suspect that is why he withdrew late in his career.
Geoffrey Grubb

I watched Bishop Sheen in the ’50s. I also attended the University of Rochester (as an older student) in the late ’80s. The Newman Club was very vibrant and progressive back then. I think a lot of it had to with the legacy of Bishop Sheen. He had a great heart and a great mind, an open one. I even remember a TV lecture positively presenting Teilhard de Chardin. If he were with us today, I can’t see him in any way condoning the U.S. support for genocide of the Palestinians and the endless military adventurism. Perhaps he would call us to a collective examination of conscience and re-evaluation of our actual history. The last 40 years have made me lose my faith in America as an exceptional moral force and see it more as an old-fashioned imperial impulse now in decline.
Stanley Kopacz

To us Catholics, Sheen was a rock star who made being Catholic singular. No one lifted me up as much as Fulton during my teens. As I sit here with my aging realism, I can’t help but feel a glow about how this great person preached the Good News.
Bill Mazzella

Like several others here, I remember seeing the show when I was a child. But I have no memories of what he said. I was fascinated by his pacing around, swishing his long cape. Since TV was black-and-white then, the color of his cape didn’t show, and I thought he looked like Count Dracula.
Anne Chapman

Bishop Sheen spoke out against the totalitarian ideologies of communism and fascism. It would be interesting to read what Sheen, a Thomist, said about how ideology displaces the faith of those who subscribe to it—especially an ideology held by Catholic politicians holding the highest political offices that has little regard for human dignity and shows a willful ignorance of denying facts and reality itself.
Bill Dodd

Sheen was a great orator and evangelist. I observe him being used in the U.S. church today to support a traditionalist agenda that focuses on personal piety and a me-and-God spirituality. This spirituality is impoverished by largely ignoring the social doctrine of the church and the critical themes of engagement with the world given to us in the Second Vatican Council. I’ve always wondered about his absence from retrospective analysis of Vatican II. He appears to have been largely silent before, during and after the greatest ecclesial event of his century.

It is far too early to pursue his canonization. Give it 100 years.
Thomas Groot

This article appears in October 2026.