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America's Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen Paperback – November 1, 2002

by Thomas C. Reeves (Author)
4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 63 ratings
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Among Fulton J. Sheen's thousands of converts were celebrities such as Clare Booth Luce and Henry Ford II, and former communists Louis Budenz and Elizabeth Bentley. Reeves discusses these conversions and Sheen's close friendship with J. Edgar Hoover, and details for the first time the struggle between Sheen and his chief rival, Francis Cardinal Spellman, a battle of ecclesiastical titans that led all the way to the Pope and to Sheen's final humiliation and exile.
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  1. Print length
    479 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Encounter Books
  4. Publication date
    November 1, 2002
  5. Dimensions
    5.98 x 1.39 x 9.12 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    1893554619
  7. ISBN-13
    978-1893554610
  8. Lexile measure
    1450L
  9. See all details
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Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Encounter Books (November 1, 2002)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 479 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1893554619
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1893554610
  • Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1450L
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.66 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.98 x 1.39 x 9.12 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 63 ratings

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Thomas C. Reeves

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4.9 out of 5 stars
4.9 out of 5
63 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James H. Toner
5.0 out of 5 stars Extraordinary Biography--Extraordinary Man
Reviewed in the United States on October 4, 2001
Verified Purchase
Thomas Reeves's biography of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen (1895-1979) is superbly crafted. This is not hagiography, for Bishop Sheen had faults and flaws--pride and an inclination to luxury chief among them, Reeves tells us. But Reeves's balanced and thoroughly researched study reveals a man of whom it truly is not too much to say that he, Sheen, was holy. For Archbishop Sheen, Reeves explains, "believed himself driven by the Holy Spirit, loved by a Savior, supported by a Holy Mother, inspired by the Vicar of Christ" (348). A brilliant lecturer, prolific author, and passionate defender of the Catholic faith, the Archbishop was also persuaded that "the closer we get to Christ the closer [Protestants and Catholics] get to one another" (349). Here is the story of a priest-bishop who gave away millions of dollars to charity, traveled millions of miles to spread the Gospel he loved, and wrote millions of words (and hundreds of books and pamphlets), dedicating his life and extraordinary talents to the service of Christ. Although Bishop Sheen was given to bouts of vanity, he was at the same time intensely devoted to spiritual excellence, and he modeled his deep devotion for decades as, arguably, the best-known (and, no doubt, the best educated) preacher of his time. Reeves tells us, correctly of course, that the actor Martin Sheen took his last name from Bishop Sheen with his permission. Bishop Sheen converted to Catholicism numerous well-known people, including atheists and communists, and countless ordinary people who were seeking a spiritual center for their lives. Reeves's book is as clear, concise, and cogent as it is well documented. This book is a major contribution, not just to Church history, but to American history and biography. One cannot come away from it without concluding, as does Reeves, that Fulton J. Sheen's writing, and indeed his life, were about bringing "solace, healing, and hope to hearts; truth and enlightenment to minds; goodness, strength, and resolution to wills" (4). Bishop Sheen was an extraordinary preacher and teacher, and Reeves's superb biography is worthy of its subject.
53 people found this helpful
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Michael Seagriff
5.0 out of 5 stars A Bishop For Our Times
Reviewed in the United States on January 22, 2016
Verified Purchase
I am an avid reader of anything about, or written by, Venerable Fulton J Sheen. I can never get enough of this unique and gifted prelate.

Several months ago, Thomas C. Reeves, the author of America's Bishop - The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen left a comment on one of my blog posts. I accepted his suggestion to read his book.

I was not disappointed. The book is well-researched, invitingly written and fair in its depiction of this internationally acclaimed preacher, theologian and entertainer. It contained a great deal of information about, and quotes attributed to, Sheen that were new to me.

What follows is a good example of how clearly this Bishop saw into the future while so many of us still remain blind to the problems he tried to warn and prepare us for:

"Have you noticed that as men lose faith in God, they become selfish, immoral and cruel? On a cosmic scale, as religion decreases, tyranny increases; as men lose faith in Divinity, they lose faith in humanity. Where God is outlawed, there man is subjugated.".

If you admire the good Bishop or would like to get a good and accurate idea of who he was - warts and all - this book will serve you well. Originally published in 2001, it has stood the test of time.

I highly recommend this book
16 people found this helpful
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Thomas J. Burns
5.0 out of 5 stars A Brilliant Cleric: He Told Us So Himself
Reviewed in the United States on October 1, 2004
Verified Purchase
Fulton J. Sheen will never be canonized a saint in the Roman Catholic Church for two obvious reasons: his sins are bright scarlet and we know them too well. Sheen established a television intimacy with the American public in the 1950's that only a few individuals have achieved-Walter Cronkite and Johnny Carson come to mind-through his apostolic use of that explosive new video medium. I was a lad in Catholic elementary school when Sheen delivered his prime time homilies from 1952 through 1957. While I remember little of the content of those shows, I was captivated by the style. Sheen, I noticed, paused to let the audience think. None of my local priests did that, nor did they have Skippy the angel to erase the blackboard.

Thomas Reeves is to be commended for the manner in which he tells the truth, the whole truth, about Sheen without defacing the Bishop's many good works and his positive influence upon a wide and diverse American public. Sheen's life was indeed a message "written with crooked lines" and one is reminded of Christ's words to the penitent woman, "her sins, many as they are, will be forgiven because of her great love." Though haunted by the pride and ambition that would seem to stalk nearly all television evangelists who followed, in the final analysis Sheen did love his God, though he himself ran a close second.

Born in 1895 on a farm in rural Illinois, the youthful Peter John Sheen was devout, smart, and disdainful of manual labor and farming. He was hardly the first country boy to see the cloth as a step up from shoveling manure. We forget that he was originally a priest of the Peoria, Illinois, diocese, possibly because of his distinguished academic record at the Louvain.

There is an air of mystery about Sheen's academic status, though. Desperate to escape a life in Peoria, Sheen joined the philosophy faculty of Catholic University in 1926 but never became "one of the boys" of the staff. In fact, tenure was denied him for some years, in part because the young priest was away from the campus three days a week for his growing number of speaking engagements. [In 1928 he hired a clipping service to track his press notices.] Catholic University itself was in academic, political, and organizational disarray. The school was frankly under-funded and underachieving. Perhaps to ease himself out of the philosophy department and into theology, Sheen invented for himself a second doctorate, an S.T.D. that suddenly appeared after his name in 1928 and which remained on his letterhead as late as 1966. Reeves speculates that Sheen got away with this massive deception precisely because it was so audacious and no one would have expected it of him.

Reeves wonders if Sheen is under-appreciated today as a scholastic. Although brilliant and prolific, Sheen was not original, and added nothing of substance to twentieth century philosophy. Sheen's strength was apologetics: the presentation of Catholic faith and devotion in simple, straightforward, and yet cosmopolitan ways. For about forty years, from 1928 through 1966, Sheen was arguably the best preacher in the United States, dividing his time between public appearances, radio and television, prodigious devotional writing, and fundraising for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith [and, surprisingly, acting as an "observer" of sorts for J. Edgar Hoover, who admired his fierce anti-communism.] His work for the Society earned him the title bishop, appointed auxiliary to Cardinal Francis Spellman of New York in 1951. Reeves finds that Sheen was a holy priest who made a daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament and spent hours personally instructing converts, including numerous celebrities of the entertainment and publishing industries.

Having said that, it cannot be denied that Sheen shocked his clerical brethren with a champagne lifestyle. While a faculty member at CU Sheen built a magnificent home in NW D.C.and entertained frequently and graciously. As a fund-raiser, millions of dollars passed through his hands, though there is no whiff of impropriety. Reeves does comment upon Sheen's total absence of fiscal management skill, his arrogance and petulance that insulated him from sound advice, his unfettered cash charity, and his pride of bestowal, so to speak. These factors, coupled with Spellman's own devils, led to an estrangement between the two that produced one of the strangest episcopal appointments of our lifetime.

In October 1966 Fulton Sheen was appointed bishop of Rochester, NY. To church observers it was clear that Spellman had orchestrated the transfer for ultimate humiliation effect. In public, at least, Sheen put the best face on things, explaining that his tenure would be an experiment with the reforms of the recently concluded Vatican II. In truth, Sheen was a pre-Vatican II autocrat who alienated nearly every local constituency. His unilateral decision making cost him his priests, and his explicit criticisms of racial policies at Kodak the support of the city's largest employer. He was deeply wounded that Rochester did not recognize the celebrity in its midst, and within three years "America's best preacher" withered into retirement.

If the Rochester years were his crucifixion, they also brought Sheen into communion with his best self. In retirement he publicly regretted his earlier opulence and vanity. He became less dogmatic and more open to philosophical systems other than that of St. Thomas Aquinas. Although not entirely shedding his theatrical instincts, he lived the last of his 84 years with an optimistic piety that belied the sufferings of multiple illnesses. Appropriately, he was found dead in his private chapel. Throughout this remarkable life, with its graces and glosses, Sheen's prayers were always sincere. His arrogance and sense of self-importance are perhaps the less desirable fruits of his utter certainty in the truth and goodness of God and the holiness of the Roman Catholic Church.
35 people found this helpful
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RONALD G MAIN
5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful Bio
Reviewed in the United States on April 8, 2024
Verified Purchase
Used to watch Bishop Sheen on TV when I was a boy.. His bio complements that experience..
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