Bishop Barron reflects on the life, theology, and evangelical legacy of Bishop Fulton Sheen
Bishop Robert Barron discusses Fulton Sheen's biography, theology, and enduring influence on Catholic evangelization with host Matthew Petrusek.
Summary
Bishop Barron and Matthew Petrusek, senior director of the Word on Fire Institute, discuss the life and legacy of Bishop Fulton Sheen in the context of his advancing canonization cause. Barron traces Sheen's intellectual formation — from his studies in Illinois and Minnesota through to Louvain — and explains how that deep grounding in philosophy and Thomistic theology powered his later media ministry. The conversation covers Sheen's key theological contributions, including his mystical body ecclesiology and his theology of grace, and draws explicit parallels between Sheen's career arc and Barron's own. Barron also addresses the challenge of unvetted Catholic voices on social media, arguing that bishops should exercise greater oversight over online Catholic content, just as they do over textbooks and university professors.
Key Takeaways
FULL TRANSCRIPT
Introduction and Sheen's Advancing Canonization
Matthew Petrusek: Welcome back to the Word on Fire Show. Today we're looking at the great Bishop Fulton Sheen, celebrating his legacy and looking at his ongoing impact — not only on Word on Fire, but on the Church and culture more broadly. But before we do, what have you been up to recently?
Bishop Barron: I'm in the midst of confirmation season, which is always a joy — it's also a bit of a workout. When I was in California, I used to do about 36 confirmations in a two-month period, so you're pretty much going all the time. Here it's a little bit less, but you do a lot of confirmations and I go from end to end of my diocese, from Wisconsin to South Dakota. It's a lot of driving, but it's always a great thing. I think it's an important task for a bishop, because you're there with these young kids to symbolize the universal church, and it's special for them when the bishop shows up. I always get a kick out of it, but it's a bit of a workout during these months for most of us bishops.
Matthew Petrusek: So again, we're looking at the legacy of Fulton Sheen. Before we look at his impact and his biography, we recently received news that the Church has moved to beatify him. For those in our audience who may not know what the process involves — can you explain what it means that he's been beatified but is not yet a saint?
Bishop Barron: Beatus in Latin just means "happy." So when you're beatified, it's one step away from sainthood. We're talking about the happiness of that person in heaven. To be a saint, ultimately, is to be in heaven — that's what it means. The Church is very careful in the declaration of saints. You have to go through several stages. When a cause is first introduced, a case has to be made — a kind of critical biography is written, there are various interrogations of witnesses, and so on. One of the key moments, which is where beatification comes in, is that the Church seeks a miraculous confirmation that the person is in heaven.
Sheen has an extraordinary miracle involving a young baby who died — I don't know if the baby was born dead or died right after birth.
Matthew Petrusek: For 61 minutes.
Bishop Barron: And the last version of the story I heard said the baby was actually in the morgue. When the priest arrived, the parents summoned him to pray, and the nurse said, "Father, the baby's gone — the baby's in the morgue." The mother said, "I want the father to pray." So they backed off. The priest placed a relic of Fulton Sheen on the baby's chest and prayed — I think just the Our Father — and then the baby began to cry. The doctor was flabbergasted, but then said, "Well, the baby's alive, but he's going to be completely impaired — there'll be irreparable brain damage." He's a young, healthy, bright kid today, named Fulton. It's an extraordinary miracle.
When the Church can verify one like that, it's enough for beatification. You need a second one to move to canonization. So Sheen is very close now to being declared a saint.
Sheen's Life and Intellectual Formation
Matthew Petrusek: Let's look at Bishop Sheen the man, and then his teaching and his impact. Start with a brief personal and intellectual biography before looking at his impact on you and on Word on Fire. What are some key moments in his life, and some key ideas he encounters that lead him to become the great Bishop Fulton Sheen?
Bishop Barron: He's always from my home state of Illinois — a little town called El Paso, Illinois, not far from Peoria. Very simple background. Early on he conceives the idea of becoming a priest. He's one of those people called very young to the priesthood. He studies in Illinois, and also up here in Minnesota — he was for a time at Saint Paul Seminary.
Matthew Petrusek: That's right.
Bishop Barron: Where I send my students. He then studied at Catholic University, and finally at Louvain, the great Catholic University. So he had a very rich, very thorough education, and a great love for philosophy and for Saint Thomas Aquinas.
I'll say this as a proud Minnesotan — Sheen's devotion to the Holy Hour credibly began up here at the seminary. He had a professor there who impressed upon him the centrality of the Holy Hour, which he practiced his whole life and then propagated to the world. I think Minnesota can claim a little credit for that.
He had a very rich background, and when he returned home as a priest of Peoria, everyone knew he was destined to be a professor. But the bishop at the time wanted him to spend a little time in a parish, just to test his obedience. The young, very gifted figure said, "Okay, I'll be a parish priest for a while." And then the bishop said, "Okay, off you go," and he was offered a job at Catholic University.
He remained there for many, many years — I think over 20 years. He was professor of philosophy, apologetics, and religion at Catholic University. Then when he was, I think, about 50 or in his early 50s, he begins the TV ministry he's best known for. That's a very important point — he had a long formation as a student and then a long further formation as a professor of theology. That's what made his public evangelical work so powerful.
Sheen's Theology of the Mystical Body
Matthew Petrusek: One of the major theological contributions he makes is in the theology of the mystical body. Can you say a little about what his argument is there?
Bishop Barron: It's very interesting. That theme of the Church as mystical body was emerging in the early 20th century — just as Sheen was coming of age and going through his education. Then under Pius XII, a few decades later, he writes the great encyclical Mystici Corporis, which develops that idea very strongly.
The roots of it are ultimately biblical, in people like Saint Paul, but it's reiterated in the theology of the 19th century, especially in Germany. The idea is that the Church is not so much an organization. We can look at a corporation, a business, a government, and see certain analogies with the Church — it has offices and hierarchies and so on. But it's wrong to think of the Church primarily as an organization. It's more like an organism — a living thing made up of cells and molecules and organs, constituting a body of interrelationship and interdependence under the headship of Christ, animated by the Holy Spirit. That's the Church.
You can pull out all kinds of ecclesiological implications from that, and it gives you a much richer understanding of what it means to be a member of the Church. From the mystical body theology comes a deep commitment to justice and concern for the poor, the hungry, and the homeless — because they're not just people having problems, they're members of the same body that I'm a member of. The healthy organ can't say to the sick organ, "Well, that's your problem." No, it's our problem. So from the mystical body theology comes a very strong commitment to social action, Catholic action, social justice. Sheen had that. His great book on the Church, which develops these themes, ends with a reflection on Catholic action, which I think is very powerful.
Those are great themes prior to the council. A show we could do sometime is why some of that didn't get carried through. Vatican II shifts to the Church as "people of God" — an altogether legitimate image — but it tended to shift away from the Church as mystical body. In my judgment, that's a problem. We set aside this extremely rich metaphor for the Church. But it was very important for Sheen.
Matthew Petrusek: One of the quotes you've highlighted from Sheen is where he argues — I believe this is in his book — that "the Church is the prolongation of the incarnation through space and time." What does he mean by that?
Bishop Barron: That's based in the Church Fathers. The Word of God took to himself a body 2,000 years ago — we call it the human nature of Jesus. He takes to himself this human nature and then uses it, in Thomas Aquinas' language, as an instrument. The Logos uses the humanity of Jesus as an instrument, so the humanity becomes an icon of the invisible God, as Saint Paul put it.
Sheen, following the Fathers, would say there was then a second kind of incarnation — by analogy — whereby the Logos now takes to himself the mystical body of the Church. Think of Jesus saying to Saul, "Saul, Saul, why are you persecuting me?" The Logos has taken to himself the mystical body of the Church — all of us who are cells, molecules, and organs in his body, with him as the head. So it's a prolongation, in that sense, of the incarnation. The Church, in its sacraments, in the liturgy, in the Eucharist, in the saints, in its works of mercy, becomes Christ in the world. It's the way Christ continues to be present to the world. That's also a mystical body ecclesiology.
Matthew Petrusek: How does the papacy fit within that vision?
Bishop Barron: The Pope is the vicar of Christ — successor of Peter and the vicar of Christ. So he's a kind of sacramental representation of the head.
Sheen's Theology of Grace
Matthew Petrusek: Another major theme in Sheen's thought is his theology of grace. Say a little about how Sheen conceived of and communicated how grace worked upon those who chose to accept it.
Bishop Barron: He used an image — it's in his writings, but also I think in one of his TV presentations — that I find very rich, and I've tried to adapt it myself.
Sheen says that in the hierarchy of being, going from the lowest basic elements up through plants and animals to human beings and then to the spiritual, what you notice is that there can be a lifting up of a lower element by a higher element. But it can never happen from below upward — it has to happen through a condescension of what's above.
Think of a mineral in the earth. It can be assimilated by plant life — the plant, through its roots, can draw minerals into itself and raise them to a higher pitch. The mineral on its own can't do that. It can't become something higher without being drawn. Now, the plant can become something higher when an animal comes and eats it and brings it up into its animal form of life. And we consume animals all the time — we assimilate them and draw them up into our higher form of life.
Following that principle, Sheen says: can we be drawn up into the spiritual order? Yes. But what we can't do is affect it on our own. I can't say that by my heroic efforts, by my great moral excellence, by pulling myself up by my bootstraps, I will make myself a new creation. And here — and Sheen is following Aquinas — that's what the Protestants got right. That's what Luther saw clearly: you can't save yourself. There's no auto-justification. You need a graceful condescension from above.
But here's the Catholic difference. The mineral is dumbly assimilated. The plant is dumbly assimilated. The animal is dumbly eaten by us. But we are subjects with mind and will. So yes, we need the condescension of grace, but then there is our cooperation with that grace — to use Catholic language. We cooperate with the grace that's offered to us and thereby become divinized, spiritualized.
As Sheen — echoing Aquinas — always says, the purpose of the Christian life is not to make me a nice guy or a morally better person. I mean, that's fine, but Norman Vincent Peale can do that. The point of the gospel is to make me a new creation. I become transfigured and transformed and elevated. I'm now a son or daughter of God. I can't affect that on my own — it has to be through grace. Read the Council of Trent: can I save myself? Absolutely not. Is grace indispensably important? Yes. Is grace always the first move? Yes. And it's this principle of the condescension from above that allows for the assimilation from below.
Sheen's Personal Impact on Bishop Barron
Matthew Petrusek: Looking at your own personal engagement with Sheen — what are some early memories you have of him, and did he have any impact on your own journey to the priesthood?
Bishop Barron: Not much, directly. I will say this — my parents loved Fulton Sheen. They would have watched him on TV. My father was a great guy, very practically minded. I think of the John Wayne movie The Quiet Man — he was like that, a taciturn man. Ardent Catholic. I remember one time Sheen's name came up and my father was in his chair and he said, "I liked what he said. I liked the way he said it." And I think that summed up the way a lot of Catholics felt about Sheen.
They, like a lot of people in their generation, would have watched him with great pride — that on this major American TV network, competing successfully against Jackie Gleason and Frank Sinatra, was a bishop in full regalia, including ferraiolo and zucchetto, coming out in primetime and giving a 25-minute lecture without notes on the Catholic faith and culture. A lot of Catholics legitimately took great pride in that.
Now, I'm the generation that came of age after Vatican II. I go to first grade in 1965, the year the council ends. There was a kind of turning away from much of the pre-conciliar — "we're reinventing the Church," that sort of thing. That's a talk for another day. But my generation would not have followed Sheen. By that time he wasn't on TV anymore. He dies in 1979, actually when I was at Catholic University, and he was fondly remembered there. So by the time I was coming of age in the late '60s and early '70s, he was toward the end of his time and didn't impact us.
But then — largely through EWTN, because I think they started replaying his old shows — he begins to appeal to the next generation after mine. When I come back to Mundelein Seminary to teach, I discover these young guys are the John Paul II generation. And they came to love Fulton Sheen, especially the Holy Hour. They began practicing the Holy Hour. My generation didn't do that — I can tell you, we didn't do the Holy Hour. But my students were doing it. And I became re-intrigued by Sheen because of that.
I remember — I'm dating myself here — I had this collection of little cassette tapes. Somehow I got them, and I began to play them in my car. They were all talks by Sheen, like a retreat he gave. Well, they were darn good. They were smart, they were funny, they were insightful, they were spiritually rich. They really had an impact on me. I listened to the whole retreat, whatever it was, and I still remember things from it. That commenced my own rediscovery of Fulton Sheen.
Sheen's Influence on Word on Fire
Matthew Petrusek: There's a large portrait of Fulton Sheen just outside the studio doors where we're filming. What impact did he have on your decision to form Word on Fire Catholic Ministries?
Bishop Barron: A lot — because I saw Sheen as the patron saint of evangelizing through media. And here's what I think is a point of contact between the two of us. I had a very rich formation in philosophy and theology, including Catholic University and a European institution — I went to the Institut Catholique in Paris. He went to Louvain, which was a few clouds away from Paris. We both had a Catholic University connection, and both had a rich appropriation of especially Saint Thomas Aquinas. And then we also come together this way: we both taught for a long time. I taught at Mundelein from 1992 until I became rector in 2012 — 20 years. He taught about 20 years at Catholic University.
And then at that moment — Word on Fire commences around 2000, when I would have been 40. By the time we're doing the Catholicism series and all that, I'm in my mid-40s. Sheen was on the radio in his 40s, probably, and then on TV by his 50s. So there is a kind of interesting parallel between the two of us. And I just saw him as someone who paved the way, especially — may I say — in the importance of that formation.
One of my pet peeves is the number of people who just say, "Hey, I've got a microphone, I'm a Catholic, here's my podcast." Well, who are you, and where were you educated, and what do you know about the faith? I'm being a little cynical, because some people are great, but you can't just put out a shingle and say, "I'm a Catholic podcaster." Sheen had a very profound intellectual formation, and I always tell people: if you want to get into this, you need to do the work. You can't just hang out your shingle. You've got to be grounded in the great tradition and know what you're saying. Sheen is a model to me of that.
Sheen as a Pivotal Player
Matthew Petrusek: A few years ago you came out with the Pivotal Players series, following your Catholicism series, and you devoted a whole episode to Fulton Sheen — placing him among some of the greatest lights in the history of the Church. Why did you choose to focus on him?
Bishop Barron: I'm not trying to suggest that Fulton Sheen is an intellectual at the level of Thomas Aquinas or Augustine, or that he's a founder of an order like Ignatius. I'm not exaggerating his importance. But I saw him as literally pivotal in the way he opened the door for this particular form of the new evangelization — groundedness in the great tradition, combined with a willingness to use the most contemporary forms of communication.
There were a lot of people — I certainly heard this when I got started, and Sheen heard it for sure — who said, "Oh, come on, television? Can you do anything serious on television? You have a primetime TV show and you're going to talk about what?" His more academic colleagues thought it was all crude popularization. But I think Sheen proved that you can do it in an intellectually serious way and still in a way that is compelling for a lot of people. I found that very inspiring, and that's why his portrait is out there.
How Sheen Communicated
Matthew Petrusek: He's famous for making complex theological and moral truths both accessible and very attractive to large audiences, both Catholic and Protestant. In your judgment, how did he accomplish that?
Bishop Barron: It's a combination of things. All the great comedians and entertainers of the time admired him and noticed his gifts. I think it was Milton Berle who said his comic timing was impeccable. Sheen used humor a lot. A lot of his jokes look kind of corny now, but at the time I think people found it attractive — here's a bishop wearing a cape telling a cute joke, with good comic timing and self-deprecation.
He also had great rhetorical gifts. You look at him now and he strikes us as a little grandiloquent, a little hyperdramatic, but he was coming out of a 19th-century tradition — think of the great oratorical style of Lincoln's time, the poses, the dramatic gestures, the voice. Sheen was coming out of that tradition. The '60s were a great watershed and we were all taught to be much more casual and natural after that. So the rhetoric has changed, but Sheen had those gifts and knew how to use them.
Part of it, too, was his looks. He was a striking-looking man — not tall, maybe 5'5", but he had an imposing physical presence. Everyone talks about his eyes: deep-set, penetrating. He knew how to use that. He had an actor's gift. John Paul II comes to mind — John Paul was trained as an actor and knew how to use his physicality and his presence. Sheen certainly had that.
And like all great teachers — if you want to identify the one thing in common — it's a gift for analogy. A teacher knows: "What do you already know? Well, the thing I want to teach you is like it, but a little different." That's an analogy. Picasso was asked once what the key to his genius was, and he said, "I have an eye for visual analogies." The curve of the guitar is like the curve of a woman's body, and so on. Sheen had that — a great gift for analogy.
Matthew Petrusek: Sheen also did not shy away from using sharp prophetic language to condemn the moral errors he saw in the culture and in the world, even in politics. How do you think he was able to do that without alienating his millions of viewers?
Bishop Barron: I think he established goodwill. People knew, "Okay, I like this guy, he's smart," and he appealed — this is very important — way beyond the Catholic Church. It's a Catholic instinct to use natural law to find what we all have in common, Catholic, Jew, Protestant. He appealed widely to Protestants by appealing to great American values and common moral and basic biblical values. I think he built up that goodwill, which enabled him then to speak prophetically.
He was a great opponent of communism — one of the greatest in the 20th century — and the communists knew it. They were watching him and they were wary of him. Something I'll tell you I was happy about: recently I was criticizing certain politicians because they were coming out with what I consider frankly Marxist formulations, and I did a few posts about it. Someone said, "Well, not since Fulton Sheen has a bishop come out that strongly." I thought, "All right, fine, I'll accept that." I hate communism, I hate Marxism, and it's very dangerous. When politicians are blithely trading in Marxist claptrap, that needs to be called out. Sheen was against it like mad in the '50s, and I'm against it now.
What Sheen Would Say to Today's Evangelizers
Matthew Petrusek: By way of conclusion, thinking about how we can use the great gifts that Sheen modeled in today's evangelization context — while recognizing that both culturally and technologically things have drastically changed, and it's hard to imagine 30 million people tuning in to a primetime event — what advice do you think Sheen would offer on how to use, or perhaps not use, social media?
Bishop Barron: I don't know exactly what he would say, because to see Sheen you'd have to tune in your TV or radio at a particular time. I think he would have appreciated social media, but also seen the real negative side of it.
What would he say to people today? I think he'd emphasize the education side of it — read, read, read, and be grounded in the great tradition. He famously said he made sure he ran every single word of Thomas Aquinas in Latin past his eyes — he read everything Thomas Aquinas ever wrote, in Latin. I believe that. They say when he was preparing his talks, he would write them out in French and in Latin and then practice them in those two languages, just so they would get into his soul. Then he would deliver them in English without notes. People find that amazing — he'd go on for half an hour without a note in front of him and end precisely on the point. Like anybody who makes it look easy, there's a ton of work that goes into it. Sheen had that kind of dedication.
Matthew Petrusek: What caution do you think Sheen would offer to the multitudes of self-identified Catholics who go online, turn on their camera, get their microphone, and claim to speak on behalf of the Church?
Bishop Barron: Be wary of them. I think he'd be wary, and he'd want to make sure they have the requisite formation. I've said this at bishops' meetings — we monitor textbooks, we monitor catechetical programs, we give imprimaturs, we certify professors, we do all those things. But let's face it, most people today are not getting their instruction from books and pamphlets and university courses. They're getting it from the internet. So why aren't we having more oversight over the internet? I still think that's a good idea. What it looks like precisely, I don't know. But I think we bishops, as teachers of the Church, should have more oversight over what's being said on these social media platforms. It has gotten out of control.
Matthew Petrusek: And there, you say "censorship" — but we do it in all the other areas. Look at the mandatum — we ask professors to seek the mandatum to teach Catholic theology.
Bishop Barron: Ask for a mandatum from every podcaster. Why not?
Matthew Petrusek: We actually talked about it, and when I launched this there was an avalanche of protest — "Oh, he's trying to control us." But then we should stop imprimaturs and stop — well, it would be a benefit for the audience, too, to know: does this presenter have a mandatum or not?
Bishop Barron: Right. So I think Sheen would be interested in that.
Matthew Petrusek: And finally, Bishop — how would you like Word on Fire to carry on and advance Sheen's legacy?
Bishop Barron: Well, that's what we're doing, I think — in a smart, beautiful way, using the media available to us to announce the faith broadly and widely, not dumbing it down, using the beauty and wealth of the tradition. All of that is Sheen's inspiration for me. That's the game.
Listener Question: Vocation and Evangelization on Social Media
Matthew Petrusek: Now time for our listener question. Today we have Alejandro from Argentina, who's asking about a possible vocation he thinks he might have to the priesthood and how he might be able to effectively evangelize on social media.
Alejandro: Hello, Bishop Barron. My name is Alejandro. I am from Argentina. My question was — even though I'm now 39 years old, I felt a strong calling for the vocation of priesthood. I was wondering if you had any advice for me, especially as someone who wants to connect with social media and wants to use that to reach people and help evangelize and help the Church. Thank you so much for your time.
Bishop Barron: Thanks for that question. Don't think you're too old. I taught all kinds of people over the years — in their 30s and 40s — who've entered the seminary. If you think you have a vocation, take that very seriously.
I would say the first step is to get a spiritual director. Find someone — a parish priest, someone you could talk to about it — and have regular contact with that spiritual director. Secondly, go to Mass every day and bring to the liturgy that great question before the Lord: "What do you want me to do? Here I am, Lord — send me where you want me to go." But the main thing is to get a good spiritual director.
And then in terms of evangelization, I'd reiterate what I've just been saying: go to the seminary, read, read, read, read, read in the great tradition, and prepare yourself to do it well. So you're not doing it in a superficial way — not just getting on the air, but getting yourself grounded in the great intellectual and aesthetic tradition of Catholicism.