Archbishop Sheen visited St. Louis on numerous occasions, often related to missions work
Tens of thousands of people will gather in St. Louis on Sept. 24 as Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is officially declared “blessed.” It will be the first known beatification Mass to take place in the archdiocese.
Archbishop Sheen was no stranger to St. Louis in his lifetime, though. Born and raised less than 200 miles away in the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, he visited St. Louis on numerous occasions in the 1940s-70s, many times to speak at events related to his work with the missions through the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
He also celebrated Mass at St. John the Apostle and Evangelist’s centennial celebration in 1947 and at Visitation Academy in 1956. He attended the funeral of Cardinal Joseph Ritter at the Cathedral of Saint Louis in 1967; earlier that year, he visited St. Louis to congratulate Msgr. Edward O’Meara on being appointed his successor as national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.
Archbishop Sheen’s last recorded visit to St. Louis was in 1978, just one year before his death, when he attended the Institute of Religious Life in St. Louis and delivered the homily at Mass in the Convention Center Downtown. Mother Teresa of Kolkata was also in attendance.
When Kim Specht started working in the Mission Office of the Archdiocese of St. Louis, she found a box of letters from Archbishop Sheen with a note on top: Do not throw away!
Archbishop Sheen was the national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, one of the Pontifical Mission Societies that support efforts to spread the Gospel throughout the world, from 1950-66. It’s hard to articulate the influence he left on the mission work of the Church, Specht said.
“Arguably, no one else in history of the Church has raised more prayers and support for the missions that Fulton Sheen — it’s estimated about $2 billion that he brought in during his lifetime,” she said.
His visits to St. Louis “just further ignited that missionary spirit that was already present, and he’s doing the same thing today with the beatification,” Specht said. “What an opportunity to be able to talk about what he did for the missions and how he encouraged those prayers. He had such a great way of speaking to every person and inviting them to participate in the missionary work of the Church, and that’s the sole objective of our office — for each person to realize they’re called to be a missionary, and we all live it out in different ways.”
Jim Sweeney still remembers the awe he felt when he briefly shared a stage with Archbishop Sheen.
Sweeney was president of the Archdiocese of St. Louis Daily World Missionaries, a group dedicated to daily prayer, sacrifice and support of the Pontifical Mission Societies, and Archbishop Sheen came to town to speak at the group’s dinner celebration in the 1960s.
“It was just awesome. I got to introduce him, and of course, he gave one of his great talks,” Sweeney, 95, said.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen spoke at the Cathedral of Saint Louis on March 25, 1972.
Archbishop Sheen’s influence has manifested in other ways for parishioners in the Archdiocese of St. Louis, too. Patty Kernell’s devotion to him began when her husband, Tom, was sick in 2014. A good friend from her prayer group suggested that they start praying for his healing through Archbishop Sheen’s intercession and ordered a batch of prayer cards to distribute to friends and family.
Soon after, Sheen started showing up for the family. They had planned a day trip to Peoria to visit his tomb but had to cancel at the last minute because Tom wasn’t feeling up to it. Instead, they attended Mass at their parish, Mary Queen of Peace, where Deacon Tom Mulvihill happened to open his homily with a quote from Archbishop Sheen.
Later, while Kernell’s husband was in the hospital, an ear, nose and throat specialist came to consult. The doctor saw the Archbishop Sheen prayer card propped on the bedside table and told them that he had a special devotion to Sheen and would be praying for their family.
Tom died a few months later, but Kernell continues to pray for Archbishop Sheen’s intercession in her life.
“(Tom) didn’t get the physical healing, but it was devotion, prayer, calling other people together,” Kernell said.
Joan McHugh, a parishioner at St. Peter in Kirkwood, remembers her father calling her over to the TV to watch Archbishop Sheen’s program “Life is Worth Living.” He was a faithful Catholic who loved tuning in to the archbishop’s program each week and repeated that mantra, “life is worth living,” to his children often.
“What an impact (Sheen) had on my parents’ generation more than anything, helping form them well in the faith,” she said. “He was a pioneer when it comes to evangelization.”
When her father was on hospice in Milwaukee, McHugh was driving back to St. Louis after being at his bedside for several days. She pulled off at a random exit in the middle of Illinois to find a gas station.
“There’s a stop sign and a marquee, and on this marquee it said, ‘Welcome to El Paso, Illinois, birthplace of Fulton Sheen,’” she said. “I just started to weep because I felt it was a kiss from heaven.”
When she arrived home, she had a message on her answering machine from her sister, and she knew her father had died.
“I felt like (Sheen) was taking care of my dad,” she said. “I was just overcome.”
