(upbeat music) (upbeat music concludes) (upbeat music) (upbeat music continues) - This past week was historic for Central Illinois and Catholics from around the world.

Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who was born in El Paso, Illinois and served in Peoria, is now one step away from sainthood.

Sheen was beatified a week ago and is now known as Blessed Fulton Sheen.

Joining us is Allan Smith.

He's the founder and director of the Archbishop Fulton J Sheen Mission Society of Canada, and has served on the board of directors of the Archbishop Fulton Sheen Foundation in Peoria.

He joins us now from Midland, Ontario, Canada.

Well, I know you've had a busy week, Allan.

Thanks for joining us.

- Oh, it's great to be here and I enjoyed the hospitality of, again, the Peorians, and of course those in St.

Louis, made the trek down from the Great White North to celebrate Sheen with everyone.

So again, it's nice to be home, but many fond memories, that's for sure, of these events that took place last week.

- Yeah, I want to talk a little bit about those events, but first I want to hear a little bit more about you.

How did you first learn about Fulton Sheen and what piqued your interest and how did you decide to become the expert that you are?

- Yeah, well, you know, it was a God incidence.

I think there's no coincidences with God, but, you know, my wife and I were dropping one of our daughters off to a small Catholic college in Ontario, Canada.

And I was settling my daughter into the dormitories, kind of the good dad, protective custody.

And my wife was in the library looking at books and there was a box of free books there.

And so we met in the car and of course we're driving home and I said to my wife, "What did you get?"

And she says, "Oh, I got these free books and they're written by Fulton Sheen."

And I said, "Who's Fulton Sheen?"

Like, I had never heard of the man.

I didn't know anything about him.

And she says, "Oh, you don't know anything about Fulton Sheen?

Where have you been?"

And I was 48 years old, I had never heard of him.

And yet I went home and of course looked him up on the internet, saw that he wrote 48, no, sorry, he was 66 books.

But you know, we were starting to read his books together, my wife and I. And I remember her opening one of the books from 1949 called "Peace of Soul," a "New York Times" bestselling book.

And the first lines in that book were simply, "Unless souls are saved, nothing is saved."

And I thought, "Who speaks like that anymore?"

Like, that was like revival or something.

And he had my attention, and I thought, you know, "If he's interested in the state of my soul and, you know, the state of America, well, he's a friend of mine."

And so it's this idea, I started to look at his writings, I started to search his books, and I started to read them because they were just tiny little books.

They were 100 pages, easy to read.

And it was like I found a new friend, like a parish priest that understood me.

And so I just kept reading his books and reading his books.

And I think within two years I had read 30 of his books and, you know, I kind of thought, "Okay, this is a good thing.

I better share him with others."

And you know, I just went to my local seminary where they formed the priests in my diocese, and I said to the head of the seminary, "Could I come and give a small presentation on Fulton Sheen?"

And, you know, I picked up a few books and I gifted them to the seminarians, and boy, they loved it.

They just thought it was really, really neat to see that this priest was like them, but, you know, in a way worked hard, and of course had special gifts too, and became the priest that he was that was world renowned.

But again, it was just this silly little God incidence where my wife picked up a book, read it to me, and I was hooked.

And that started me on the road to, you know, learning more about Sheen, and sharing Sheen with others.

And I tell you, there's been lots of work I've done over the last 15 years and we talk a little bit about that.

But again, it was that little incident, that God incident, back when I was 48 years old, in 2009, where I found Sheen.

- And it's interesting that you mentioned all the books that he wrote because he's probably more well-known for his TV and radio shows that he did that really made him kind of a household name across the country.

When you first saw those videos, whether they were on YouTube or some other form, what did you think about his presentation and how he connected with his audience?

- Well, you know, he definitely had... When I first saw him, I thought, "Was he vaudeville trained?"

Because his movements on the stage, how he used his cape, how he would put his hands on his pectoral cross, like, they were just beautiful motions and he kept the audience captivated, including myself.

And I thought, "Wow."

But I was listening to his audio.

My dad is a radio junkie, okay?

And my dad had short wave radios and radios and he told me stories of how they used to gather around and listen to the radio.

And so I started replaying Sheen's old radio programs, and I tell you, they were such sound teachings.

Like he explained the faith that I could understand.

I'm not super educated, but for whatever reason, Fulton Sheen was able to take those lofty ideals of the saints and the church and break it down to a level where I could understand and the majority of people could understand.

And I think that's why people kept listening to him, and, I studied the numbers, he had 5 million people listen to his radio address every week.

And of course when he was on television, he had 30 million people tuning in and watching his show, because he made religion normal.

It wasn't taboo, it was, like Fulton Sheen was always saying, "You need God.

You got a soul.

Let's talk about it."

And I think that's what my parents had said to me, who watched him, said, you know, he was there to talk about the soul, but he was also there to talk about society and about life issues.

And I think that's why people really warmed up to him because he met them where they were at.

We all have problems, and Fulton Sheen was there to say, "I want to help you."

And I think that's why we kept coming back and back and back, but I was captivated by his radio addresses and his television.

- Yeah, I know a lot of non-Catholics watched his show and listened to his radio program, and I think it's probably safe to bet that he did convert quite a few people because of just the way he was down to earth, even though he had this high spot in the church.

I want to talk, and the reason we're talking today is because of the events that happened last week, the beatification and the fact that there's a lot of folks that think he should be canonized, become a saint.

This has been going on for decades now, this process.

Tell us how you got involved in it and kind of what we've seen along the way.

- All right, well, you know, as I said, I found Sheen in 2009, you know, spent the next two years reading Sheen and getting to know him, listening to his audio recordings, watching his videos.

And in 2012, I went to my local radio station, which I do a Sunday morning show already for doing the Rosary and, you know, Catholic saints.

And I said, "Could I replay Fulton Sheen's old recordings on the radio?"

And they gave me permission to do it and the show was a hit.

The next thing you know, there was three other radio stations in the area that wanted to pick up the show also.

And because there was this hunger for Sheen, even though he died in 1979, people remember hearing his voice.

And so I continued to do that.

And then of course, I started to go to the seminaries in Canada, gifting seminarians Fulton Sheen's books.

And I think the Bishop of Peoria, Bishop Daniel Jenky, saw what I was doing and said, "Could you come and help us, you know, join us with the cause in Peoria?"

And that was in 2013.

So in 2013, I met the good bishop, met the team from Peoria, my fellow board members, and we just started to work on sharing Fulton Sheen's life story, sharing his writings, and of course working the cause so that, you know, again, the Vatican would recognize Fulton Sheen's life.

We were sending to the Vatican, you know, testimonies of Sheen's witness and people that had met him, encountered him, sending over the books for study.

And in 2010, of course, sorry, it was in 2012, sorry, Pope Benedict declared Sheen venerable.

And so, you know, we just kept working away.

And of course the Vatican is saying, "Could you present any miracles that happened?"

And of course, the Sheen Foundation took the good news of that miracle of James Fulton Engstrom, who was born without a pulse and was technically dead for 61 minutes and came back to life.

And this was in 2010.

And so that miracle was documented and sent off to the Vatican.

And a few years went by, and in 2014, they approved that miracle.

And I was there on the board and was very happy to know that we were that much closer to, again, Sheen being declared blessed, because the miracle had been approved.

And so it was just a matter of setting a date and location, and, but then there was some pauses, some wrestling over the physical remains of Fulton Sheen between the Diocese of Peoria and the Archdiocese of New York.

And that was resolved and settled.

And of course, the body of Fulton Sheen came to Peoria in 2019, and a date was set by the Vatican, you know, for December of 2019, but then again, another pause, another delay.

And so I think all our hearts sank, again, 'cause it wasn't the first pause we've experienced.

It was a few of them.

But yet we all kind of just kept praying and saying, "In God's perfect timing, this will happen."

And we just kept working.

We kept sharing Sheen, we kept doing podcasts, we kept asking people to pray.

And yet we knew that one day, that it would come soon enough.

And sure enough, we get a new Holy Father, Pope Leo XIV comes, you know, across the, we say, you know, when the Pope enters the world and comes out on the stage and we all applaud and we say we have a pope.

And of course he has an American background.

Of course, again, celebrating that we finally have our first American pope.

And so we knew that it would look favorably upon our cause.

And I think the timing was just right.

The church leaders had all said, you know, "Prudence is very good."

It takes a lot of patience sometimes to be prudent and to say we have to wait, but we did.

And now of course we celebrated that beautiful beatification ceremony on Thursday of last week, and we're still smiling ear to ear, but it has been a little bit of a roller coaster ride.

And I say we've been spoiled.

I mean, as Catholics, we were spoiled because the beatifications and canonizations of recent saints were very quick.

Saint John Paul II didn't take much time.

Mother Teresa of Calcutta, it seemed like she died and was made a saint almost immediately.

And other saints that have had these quick turnarounds.

And I think we were kind of expecting the same with Fulton Sheen.

We were expecting him to be canonized relatively quickly, you know, just as quick as John Paul II and Mother Teresa.

But when we saw those delays, we were upset, because we were spoiled, I think, with Mother Teresa and Saint John Paul II.

So again, in God's perfect timing, the church usually takes 75 to 100 years to make a saint, when we look back on the history of the church.

Well with Fulton Sheen, you know, again, I'm very happy that he is blessed.

And I really believe in the next couple years we will be calling him Saint Sheen, because we do, the monsignor Jason Gray had said to me that we have six miracles that we're looking at that are very good cases, and we will present one of those cases to the Vatican to hopefully have the second miracle needed approved to declare Fulton Sheen Saint Sheen.

- Let's talk a little bit about the ceremony that happened last week at The Dome in St.

Louis, anywhere from 50 to 70,000 people there.

And I was watching it online and it was interesting because it almost seemed like, I was joking with you earlier about how this, you know, could be the Super Bowl for a lot of Catholics, and the telecast was almost like the Super Bowl.

You had the pregame show with the analysts and the color commentators, and it was really a nice performance and broadcast there.

But I want to know specifically for you, what was it like?

You mentioned James Engstrom, who is the center of this miracle that a lot of people believe Archbishop Sheen was involved with.

What was it like seeing him there as a now 16 year old and him also presenting a relic of Fulton Sheen in front of that big audience?

- Yeah, well, I don't think there was a dry eye in the building, including my own.

I was welling up with tears because, you know, I have a son, and you know, so I know what it's like to watch a son kind of, you know, have his moment.

And of course this was a moment for him where, you know, he's been carrying around, I like to say this badge of honor, that you know, he is the miracle boy, the boy that was healed by God.

And he always has to live with that.

But then of course that moment where he carried the jawbone of Fulton Sheen, of course that beautiful relic, the voice that came from that jawbone, but for him to process the relic in, just, you know, standing tall, and you could tell he was emotional, too.

But it's this idea of God is in the miracle business, and he's that living testimony to say, "Yeah, I came back to life."

But that moment I think is captured on film for many years.

And of course it was a family affair, the family processed.

I believe it was his brother that was helping him carry it for, you know, 'cause it was quite a long walk, you know, from, you know, I call the dressing rooms through the stadium.

And the reliquary itself was quite heavy, you know, 50, 60 pounds.

And, you know, like to carry that for that long, I mean, I admire the guys, but they're young, strapping young men.

So they're made for that.

But again, not a dry eye in the building, 'cause again, you could see it took a miracle to make this happen.

And many people say, you know when God moves through a crowd, there are tears, and they're tears of joy for many of them.

But I tell you, that was the fine moment.

I will always remember that moment where he carried in the relics.

And again, thanks be to God.

- When we see events this big, sometimes, a lot of times, they're due to unfortunate events like funerals and things like that, but this seemed like a party.

I mean, there were people taking pictures with life size cutouts of Fulton Sheen and there was merchandise and souvenirs, and what was the atmosphere like?

It seems like at least at one point, all those people, all those tens of thousands of people, are jubilant, in a really good mood.

- Yeah.

Well, you know the whole movement was called Celebrate Sheen.

You know, the website was celebratesheen.com.

And so everything we did was kind of on that theme of celebration.

You know, we need to celebrate that we have another saint in our midst, and we have someone that we can ask for favors.

You know, and I think everyone has a Sheen story.

Like, my dad's a convert to the faith because of Fulton Sheen.

You know, he helped me in my own spiritual life.

I'm indebted to Fulton Sheen for what he's done for me.

And everyone in that building has a Sheen story, has a Sheen encounter, and they're all positive.

They're all positive.

And so that's why it was such a celebratory mood, because I think we all kinda said, "Yeah, I thank God for this man, for Fulton Sheen, and for many reasons."

And his appeal, like I kinda thought it was gonna be, you know, a 50 plus event.

You know, I thought, you know, here I am, I'm 65 years old, and I'm young sometimes, considered, you know, those who remember Sheen, but I thought it would be a lot of seniors, but it was full of young people.

Like it was the reverse.

There was, again, the mature crowd.

I like to say mature, not old, but there was so many young families, so many young adults.

It was very vibrant.

It was beautiful.

And to see the youth and their energy participating in the mass, participating in the many events that led up to the beatification ceremony, I tell you, it was just energetic.

And of course, celebratory, as I said, because of the theme of celebratesheen.com.

But again, everyone has a Sheen story, and they're usually very good stories.

Some people have met him, some people speak of, you know, family members that knew him.

I think there was like 400 Sheens in the house.

There were so many Sheen relatives at the event, too.

And they, of course, some of them processed up the gifts during Mass, and some of them spoke.

And so again, it was a family affair, but again, a very good event where the priests were celebrated, like, if you watch what I call the beginning of Mass, the procession, there was 1000 priests that lined up and processed through the stadium, you know, up to the main altar.

There was close to 90 bishops.

I think they said there was 800 seminarians, 300 deacons, and just as many religious sisters in their habits.

So just seeing that too, it was just a great sign of faith, and it just gave me hope.

And so, you know, yeah, Sheen is the show, you know?

It was about Sheen, but it was also about the church and the state of the church and that we have all these priests serving us and coming to give thanksgiving to God for Sheen and his example to priests.

And I think that's what we always have to remember, he was a priest.

And of course he gave his priestly ministry in tending to soul so well.

And it didn't matter if you were a street sweeper or a Hollywood movie star, he made time for you and talked to you about God.

And I think that's what we're all celebrating, truly, today.

And the celebration will continue, I think, for many years to come.

- Speaking of the celebration, we're running low on time, but I want you to tell us a little bit about what happened after Thursday at The Dome, coming back here to Peoria.

I know there were celebrations throughout the weekend.

Tell us a little bit about what happened here.

- Well, there was the Sheen Awards, and there was 1000 people at the Peoria Civic Center.

Great energy in the room.

Of course, all the stars were there.

Jonathan Roumie, Bishop Robert Barron.

You know, it just like, it was the who's who.

And of course there was the regular folk like you and me in there and just enjoying, again, a very well-polished show with music and speeches, and of course they presented a number of awards to, you know, those that, you know, I like to say are the Catholic influencers of today, but really they did it well.

And I think there was, again, a lot of young people there, too.

And that's where I have this hope is that it's this new generation that is coming up, and of course understand technology, and use technology, and use it to the fullest, that they will spread the gospel, and of course, Sheen's solid teachings to a new generation of listeners and viewers.

So again, a great night.

And what I loved is they're gonna do it every year.

This was the inaugural Sheen Awards, but every year they're going to run the Sheen Awards and recognize people that are using their platforms to promote the works of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, now Blessed Fulton Sheen.

- I'm curious, for Catholics, this is a really big deal, and, you know, Catholics are all over the world, especially here in the States.

But for those who aren't Catholic, explain why this is a big deal, and what this means for the future of the church, and especially when it comes maybe to getting more people to come to the Catholic faith.

- Yeah.

Well, you know, Fulton Sheen, they said that in the 1950s, the Catholic Church almost doubled.

And did Fulton Sheen have something to do with that?

I think so.

You know, my dad, when he shared his testimony with me of why he converted, he was a Seventh Day Adventist and he became a Catholic.

And my dad said to me, "Fulton Sheen took away all the fear from me about becoming Catholic."

He knew that the Catholic Church had the sacraments.

He knew that the Catholic Church had, of course, answers to many of the scripture questions he was wrestling with.

And, you know, Fulton Sheen made it fun.

You could just tell Fulton Sheen would come, and he would say, "I love being Catholic and I find this joy in being Catholic."

And I think it was infectious.

People said, "Sign me up, I want more."

And of course, Fulton Sheen gave catechism classes to thousands of people, and educated them in the faith.

And I think that's what he continues to do, because his material is still available today.

We can listen to his talks and read his catechesis, but he made being Catholic, you know, a beautiful thing, a thing that just, again, brought joy in his life.

And of course, he had that encounter with Jesus.

He talked about his holy hour where he would say to people, "Join me in praying an hour a day with the Lord, talking to him, listening to him."

And that's what he did so well.

And that invitation to prayer, I think, brought so many people to the Catholic Church.

They realized that the Eucharist is here in the Catholic Church and that Jesus is present in every tabernacle, and that he's available, he's accessible, so that we can meet with him and talk to him.

And I think that's why Fulton Sheen attracted so many souls to the Catholic Church over the years, and will so in the futures to come.

So, thanks be to God.

- So as we wrap up, you think Fulton Sheen will become a saint in our lifetime?

- I really believe so.

When I talked to Monsignor Jason Gray about the miracles that are documented, that, you know, in 2019, the Vatican said, "You can start receiving miracles and if you find any, please collect the data and then of course present it to the Vatican."

So he told me there are six cases of documented miracles that they're going to look at seriously, and of course send the necessary paperwork to the Vatican.

And you know, I'd like to say, hopefully in two to three years' time, God willing, we will see the church move and call Fulton Sheen Saint Sheen because of an approved second miracle.

And of course, we're called to pray for that.

So let's do our part.

Let's keep asking God to heal us and have these miracles through the intercession of Fulton Sheen.

But again, I think within two to three years, God willing, we hopefully will see that day where we will call him Saint Fulton Sheen.

- And Allan, where can people find out more about some of the work that you're doing?

- Well, you can find me at bishopsheentoday.com.

Bishop Sheen Today 'cause we need him today.

We needed him yesterday and we need him tomorrow, but we really need him today.

So just visit the website, bishopsheentoday.com.

You'll find me there, you'll find a great selection of Fulton Sheen's books, some audio recordings, some videos.

There's everything there, but again, bishopsheentoday.com.

- All right, Allan Smith, the founder and director of the Archbishop Fulton J Sheen Mission Society of Canada.

Maybe we'll talk to you again in two or three years.

- Yes, we hope so.

- [Mark] All right, appreciate your time.

- [Allan] Thank you.

God love you.

- All right.

And thank you everybody for watching, we appreciate it.

You can watch this again at wtvp.org.

Have a good night.

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