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Cardinal Tagle: Fulton Sheen’s mission was to bring people to Christ
At the beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen in St Louis, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle reflects on the missionary vocation of the American bishop, whose preaching reached millions through radio and television. But, he says, Sheen’s blessedness lay not in fame, but in his communion with Christ and his closeness to the poor.
Vatican News
The beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen brought together the Church in the United States and beyond to celebrate a bishop remembered for his tireless proclamation of the Gospel.
Opening his homily at the beatification Mass in St. Louis, Missouri, on Thursday, Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle conveyed the greetings of Pope Leo XIV, who, he said, “rejoices at the beatification of his fellow countryman, his fellow Illinoisan and brother Bishop.”
The Cardinal also invited the faithful to pray for the Pope’s pastoral visit to France, beginning the following day.
Tagle then turned to Pope Leo’s apostolic letter declaring Sheen Blessed, and in which he describes the new Blessed as “a tireless preacher of the Gospel through the modern means of communication and a diligent shepherd animated by missionary zeal.”
For Cardinal Tagle, two aspects of Sheen’s life stand out in particular: his identity as an evangelizer, or proclaimer of the Gospel, and his vocation as a missionary shepherd. And he noted that the three readings proclaimed at the beatification Mass likewise place evangelisation and mission at the centre.
But Tagle posed a question: What makes an evangelizer blessed? Is it the size of the audience? The reach of a radio or television programme? The number of people who listen, read or respond? For Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who presided over the beatification Mass of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the answer is found elsewhere.
During his homily at the Mass that took place on Thursday in St Louis, Missouri, the Cardinal turned the spotlight away from the American bishop’s fame as a communicator and towards the heart of his missionary vocation: communion with Christ and communion with people, especially the poor and vulnerable.
Quoting Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic letter declaring Sheen Blessed, Cardinal Tagle described him as “a tireless preacher of the Gospel through the modern means of communication and a diligent shepherd animated by missionary zeal.”
Those two descriptions, he said, point to the two dimensions of Sheen’s blessedness, the first of which, he said, is communion with Jesus.
“Blessed are you when Jesus sends you”
The readings proclaimed during the Mass all speak, in different ways, of the Church’s mission to proclaim the Gospel. Yet Cardinal Tagle noted that Christian mission is not something the evangelizer invents or undertakes simply according to personal preference.
“The Risen Lord chooses and sends his friends,” he continued, adding that the missionary, therefore, is first of all one who has been called. And that distinction, he said, mattered greatly to Sheen.
Cardinal Tagle recalled an exchange between Sheen and Pope Pius XII: Asked how many conversions he could claim, Sheen replied that he had never counted them, lest he be tempted to think they belonged to him.
He described himself instead as “simply a porter” who was sometimes able to lead people to the open door of God’s house.
The evangelizer, the Cardinal explained, does not own the people he encounters, nor does he take credit for what God accomplishes in them. He simply opens the door.
“Blessed are you, porter to the door of God’s house!” Cardinal Tagle exclaimed.
“I never tire of telling it”
Sheen, he continued, understood his vocation in similarly simple terms, and he recalled yet another anecdote: When a friend once asked why he had become a priest, he replied: “I was called to tell this story (the Gospel). I never tire of telling it. I never tire of improving my telling of it. I love my calling.”
For decades, Tagle continued, he found new ways of telling that story. His voice reached homes across the United States through radio and television, while his writings and international missionary work extended his reach well beyond the country.
But for the cardinal, the significance of Sheen’s communication ministry was not the celebrity it brought him. The question was always what — and whom — he was proclaiming.
St Paul, he recalled, “does not preach himself, but rather Jesus Christ as Lord”. To preach oneself rather than Christ is to distort the purpose of evangelisation, he explained, noting that the missionary is called to know Jesus, to allow Jesus to know and send him, and to labour humbly with him.
From an “abstract world” to concrete people
Cardinal Tagle then added another dimension to missionary blessedness, highlighting that the missionary is also called into communion with people and peoples — particularly those who are poor, vulnerable or easily forgotten.
The Gospel does not send Christ’s disciples to an abstract “world”, he said, but to human beings whose lives, wounds and dignity must be encountered, and this was a concern that Sheen himself repeatedly expressed.
Recalling Sheen’s observation that some priests could behave as though they were administering the sacraments to “anonymous groups of people”, without considering the individual identities of those before them, Cardinal Tagle observed that among those most likely to remain anonymous are the poor.
“Only a Church wounded by poverty”
Sheen, he continued, spoke strongly about the Church’s responsibility towards the poor during the Second Vatican Council and recalled an address Sheen gave during the Council’s Third Session in 1964, in which the American bishop urged the Council Fathers to affirm the importance of poverty.
He said he drew attention to the stark geographical divide between areas of prosperity and areas where poverty was widespread, particularly in Africa, Asia and Latin America, and he reminded the Council that many bishops came from countries marked by poverty and persecution.
“As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world,” Cardinal Tagle said.
For Sheen, the cardinal continued, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda. It was a consequence of following Jesus; it was part of belonging to the Church, and it was inseparable from the missionary vocation.
Sheen, he said, sought to put that conviction into practice, including by giving to the poor the remuneration he received from some of his commitments and by encouraging missionary support for poorer Churches around the world.
The man with leprosy
And dipping, once again, into one of the many stories Sheen himself told, Cardinal Tagle recalled the story of a visit to a centre in Buluba, Uganda, where around 500 people affected by leprosy were living.
Sheen, he said, had brought silver crosses to give to them.
One man who approached him had already lost his lower arm and hand; a rosary hung from the remaining part of his arm. The bishop reached out to give him a cross, but when he saw the man’s damaged flesh, “he shivered in fear and the cross fell onto the man’s hand.”
For Sheen, Tagle said, that moment became a confrontation with the meaning of the gift he was carrying. The cross spoke of Christ who had made himself vulnerable. It spoke of the Jesus who touched those who suffered. How, then, could he offer the sign of that Christ while recoiling from the person standing before him?
Sheen, he said, overcame his fear and touched and held the man’s damaged flesh, and, in doing so, he came to see himself as one of them — the “501st person with leprosy”.
“To meet Jesus there”
The image of the wounded Christ and the wounded human person returned at the close of Cardinal Tagle’s homily when he spoke of how the power of the missionary does not come from the missionary.
The evangelizer, he explained, remains an “earthen vessel”, carrying a treasure that comes from God, and the encounter with those who suffer can become an encounter with Christ himself.
“Blessed is the evangelizer converted by beholding and touching the wounds of the Risen Christ in wounded brothers and sisters,” Cardinal Tagle said.
Then came his final image of the new Blessed: “Blessed is the missionary who digs deep into the heart of the poor to meet Jesus there.”
In the end, he reiterated, Fulton J. Sheen’s blessedness was not measured by the millions who heard him, it was found in the One whom he never tired of proclaiming — and in his willingness to encounter that same Christ in the people who were most vulnerable.
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