Defending Truth and Tradition in the lay-run Roman Catholic Diocese of Rochester
How did Bishop Sheen get to Rochester?
October 16th, 2009, Promulgated by Choir
Bishop Fulton John Sheen served as bishop of the Rochester diocese from October of 1966 until October of 1969. He was known as a world renowned preacher and for his work in radio and television. So how did this major “celebrity” end up in a small diocese like Rochester?
This is an interesting story jam packed full of feuds and deals. Most of this story comes from the book “America’s Bishop — The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen” by Thomas C. Reeves.
Society for the Propagation of the Faith
Spellman named Sheen as Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. (Spellman himself was chairman of the Society’s Episcopal Committee.) Spellman was a huge fundraiser for both the Vatican and the Archdiocese of New York. He filled the coffers. To make room for Sheen at the Society, Spellman had its current director, Monsignor Thomas J. McDonnell, elevated as coadjutor of Wheeling, West Virginia.
Sheen was consecrated (the term now is ordained) a bishop on June 11, 1951 for the Archdiocese of New York City. He served as an auxiliary bishop under Francis Cardinal Spellman. The consecration took place in Rome at the Church of Sts.John and Paul, of which Spellman was titular head.
There was no evidence of serious tensions between Sheen and Spellman during the early 1950s. Spellman was personally responsible for Sheen’s new position. As director of the Society, Sheen was largely a public relations figure who traveled, preached, wrote, stayed in the news, and raised funds. Spellman knew that those qualifications fit Sheen exactly. Soon, donations began to soar, and Americans were contributing almost two-thirds of the collections made by the Society across the world.
The relationship between the cardinal and the bishop was proving productive, but Spellman was anxious that Sheen know from the beginning who was boss.
SHEEN’S TELEVISION DEBUT
“Life Is Worth Living” made its debut on February 12, 1952. From the first to the last program, Sheen appeared in full episcopal regalia. He was accustomed to dressing that way when giving public lectures. Bishop Sheen’s phenomenal success on TV was a sign that millions of Americans had gone beyond the crude caricatures so familiar in the nation’s history, and were willing to accept Catholics as Christians and friends. A bishop in full regalia who was charming, funny, learned and sensible could win allies, as well as converts, for the Church.
1955
Worse trouble appeared in 1955, as Sheen and Spellman began an epic feud that was to cloud the rest of Fulton’s life. The immediate issue was money for the missions; but pride, on the part of both the bishop and the cardinal, also played a major role in the struggle. It was a story Fulton chose not to tell in his autobiography.
To be continued
Bishop Sheen – Part 2
October 20th, 2009, Promulgated by Choir
FEUDS WITH CARDINAL SPELLMAN
Francis Cardinal Spellman was a long-time personal friend of Pope Pius XII and the head of the richest diocese in the world. He was a man accustomed to getting his way. Those who crossed him often paid the price. Father Edwin Broderick served as secretary to Spellman for a decade, claims the major difference between Spellman and Sheen was the cardinal could be talked out of a rash and erroneous decision, but when Sheen made up his mind, that was the end of it. Broderick recalled, both men had extremely strong egos and iron wills; they were “very human.” Sheen had a considerable amount of authority of his own, he refused any longer to be bullied and ordered about by a man he considered his intellectual inferior.
There were two major incidents that provided a flash-point the in the relationship. In 1955, the US government gave, free of charge, surplus food to the Catholic Relief Services, for people in war-torn European countries. The 256,540,754 pounds of foods, valued at more than $68 million, were dispersed. Spellman thought this was a good tool for proselytizing, and feared that Protestant missionaries might get a share of the goods if they did not accelerate the distribution.
Spellman wants Sheen to provide additional funds for this from the Society for the Propagation of the Faith. Sheen rejected this idea for unknown reasons. Spellman met with Sheen and, again, Sheen refused, saying he (Sheen) will do what his superiors in Rome tell him to do. Spellman wrote to a Society official in Rome criticizing Sheen for his obduracy. The Society sided with Sheen. Spellman was furious. A few months later Spellman goes to see the ailing Pope Pius XII to persuade the Pope to replace Sheen as head of the Society and name himself as successor. Pius XII refused.
ANOTHER CLASH BETWEEN THE TWO PRELATES
In 1957, the two clashed again.
For years, the federal government had been giving the Church surplus goods, largely powdered milk. Spellman turned these good over to the Society (Sheen’s group) to distribute to the world’s poor. Spellman demanded payment; Sheen refused, pointing out they had been donated free of charge.
Spellman was again furious. Sheen appealed to Rome, but couldn’t reach the ailing Pope. Spellman offered his antagonist a wealthy New York parish in exchange for his resignation from the Society, but Sheen declined. The cardinal launched three investigations into Sheen’s life, but nothing incriminating came out. Eventually both men appeared before Pius XII, each presenting his case. Fulton’s claim was documented; Spellman had not been charged for the surplus food. That meant that Spellman had lied to Pius XII and to Sheen. The Pope sided with Fulton, who remained in charge of the local Society funds.
One can imagine the cardinal’s rage. He reportedly said to Sheen, “I will get even with you. It may take six months or ten years, but everyone will know what you’re like.”
SHEEN RETIRES FROM TELEVISION
In October 1957, Sheen “retired” from television. Inside rumors was that Cardinal Spellman had him taken off the air. Sheen had now lost his major platform for raising funds and enjoying his celebrity status. He lived daily with Spellman’s wrath hovering over him. The speaking invitations declined and the fund-raising efforts became more difficult. Personal opportunities for advancement in the Church were minimal at best. Spellman’s staff members privately referred to him as “Full-Tone Jay” Sheen.
Sheen was by no means entirely out of the spotlight during his years of disfavor with Spellman. Sheen still had his newspaper column and Society literature. His Life of Christ is largely a commentary on the scriptural accounts on the life and times of Jesus Christ.
(to be continued)
Bishop Sheen – Part 3
Cardinal Spellman had ended the more than ten years of intense personal struggle by finally banishing his famous adversary from the Archdiocese of New York. Rochester was the revenge that Spellman had promised all those years ago. Once Vatican II was over, Spellman began to think seriously about evening the score.
Spellman knew that removing his antagonist would not be easy. Fulton was highly popular with Vatican Propagation officials due to his fund-raising abilities, and he was know to be on excellent terms with Pope Paul VI.
SO MANY CHOICES FOR SHEEN
Sheen was summoned to Rome and there was given his choice of several positions. He later told a priest he was offered two archdioceses and five dioceses. He selected Rochester, no doubt because of its close proximity to New York City.
Rochester was a good choice because it was ripe for change. Bishop James E. Kearney was nearly eighty-two years old and had led the diocese since 1937. To pave the way for Sheen, Spellman quietly had the Vatican, on March 9 (a month before Fulton was summoned to Rome), transfer the auxiliary bishop of Rochester, Lawrence Casey to Paterson, New Jersey. Bishop John Joseph Boardman, who had accepted the position in Paterson three days earlier, found the offer retracted. Spellman had a long acquaintance with both Kearney and Casey, and knew that Kearney was highly dependent upon his young auxiliary. Once Casey was gone, Kearney would retire willingly.
Just over two weeks after Spellman announced is own continuation in office, he called a press conference at his residence to announce Sheen’s appointment to Rochester. Spellman declared, “Just as every priest looks forward to the day when he can be a pastor, so I am sure, every bishop dreams of having a diocese of his own- not because of worldly ambition, but simply because a bishop by calling is a shepherd, and a shepherd seeks a flock.” Fulton claimed he had first learned of the appointment two days earlier, saying, “I am a soldier in the army of the church. The general has told me to go to Rochester and I love it.” He added, “I am a lover of souls, and in Rochester I will be even closer to priests and people.”
MORE BLARNEY
Fulton fed the media more blarney about his new position, claiming that Spellman told him he had not known of the appointment beforehand. Sheen promised to implement the reforms of Vatican II quickly. “It will be a pastoral administration,” Fulton said, prompting the reporter to add that the bishop was “apparently all set to remold Rochester into a demonstration diocese of his church in America.”
Spellman, the auxiliary bishops of the archdiocese, and nearly 3,000 worshipers were at St. Patrick’s Cathedral on December 11 to hear Sheen give his farewell sermons. Whatever bitterness he felt was thoroughly disguised. Nothing of the rancor between the two men surfaced in the media. But Msgr. George A. Kelly, who had worked closely with Spellman for many years, said later that it was common knowledge among insiders that the cardinal had pulled the strings to get Sheen sent to Rochester in order to prevent the bishop from becoming his successor.
BISHOP KEARNEY
Bishop James Kearney, who had guided the diocese through World War II, the peak of the Cold War, and now into the revolutionary 1960s, was much beloved. He was a good speaker with a lively Irish wit, a genial civic leader, a spiritual guide intensely devoted to Mary, and a skilled brick-and-mortar man. Between 1950 and 1965 he established 22 new parishes. By the end of 1966, the diocese had 13 diocesan or private high schools within its boundaries, with 10,350 students.
Another change affecting the diocese was a shift in the area’s ethnic composition. Blacks and Puerto Ricans had been moving into the area in sizable numbers since the 1950s. In April of 1964, a census showed 33,492 non-whites in Monroe County, almost all of them living in the city of Rochester. St. Bernard’s Seminary had no black students. The number of black Catholics was small. Sensitive to the civil rights movement, a Catholic Interracial Council (CIC) of Rochester, a lay organization, was created in 1960, to uphold the condemnation of racial discrimination issued by the American bishops in 1958.
The majority of the Puerto Ricans were Catholic, and as early as 1954 the diocese had begun taking steps to assist them. In 1963, a Catholic family opened the St. Martin de Porres Center to do settlement work among Puerto Ricans, in cooperation with Rochester Catholic Charities. Two Spanish-speaking priests were hired, and several diocesan priests and seminarians learned Spanish.
Still, the diocese as a whole was know widely to be conservative and self-satisfied. St. Bernard’s Seminary was known as “the Rock,” one of the strictest, most intellectually demanding, and most conservative seminaries anywhere.
Sheen’s formal arrival was on December 14, 1966. He said, “I have an ardent desire to spend myself and to be spent, to get my arms around Rochester.” Sheen spent his first evening in the dicoese at St. Bernard’s Seminary with the students. He told them, the roots of the diocese were in its seminary. One student, Joe Hart, later remembered how Sheen paused and started “for perhaps found seconds, that seemed like forever” when you were being introduced. It was as though he were looking through you, Hart said later.
Part 4 — Bishop Sheen
October 30th, 2009, Promulgated by Choir
The next day, Cardinal Spellman, more than forty visiting bishops, politicians, friends of the bishop, area clergy of all denominations, packed Sacred Heart Cathedral for the 90 minute installation ceremony. The installation luncheon was held at the old Manger Hotel. Four thousand people attended a civic welcome in the ten-thousand-seat War Memorial. Cardinal Spellman returned to New York immediately after the installation service.
Soon the new bishop was traveling throughout the diocese, visiting institutions and parishes. He traveled to St. Francis deSales Church in Geneva and had a pleasant conversation with assistant pastor, Father Michael C. Hogan. Sheen soon summoned Hogan to Rochester and named him his secretary. Hogan handled a variety of administrative chores and managed appointments, but he acted principally as the bishop’s chauffeur. Sheen brought his personal cook with him from New York and played tennis twice a week and rode a stationary bicycle in his apartment.
Whenever Sheen traveled, he invited people to write to him. They did, and Hogan was overwhelmed with mail, so he and another priest devised form letters to handle the deluge. The people soon caught on.
SHEEN ON THE SCENE
On the very first day of Hogan’s employment, a fire destroyed St. Philip Neri’s parish, killing the 77 year old priest, Father George Weinmann, who had tried to rescue the Blessed Sacrament, and a 26-year old nun, Sister Lillian Marie SSND, who attempted to help him. Some students had committed arson. Hogan drove Sheen to the scene. The bishop was aghast to learn that the priest had left $7 million in stocks he had forgotten about and had not made out a ill. The state took most of the money. The tabernacle is today in the renovated Sacred Heart Cathedral.
Sheen offered a series of retreat talks at the Masonic Auditorium on East Main Street, very few people showed up and Fulton was furious. “The whole world comes to hear Fulton Sheen,” he said privately, “except his own diocese.”
IMPLEMENTATION OF VATICAN II
As part of his determination to implement the teachings of Vatican II, Sheen sought to create a curia, aboard of counselors to advise him, and he chose to be democratic by asking all the diocesan priests to nominate three priests. He appointed several priests to serve as vicars in administration or in geographical districts. A lay administrative committee had been named to handle financial affairs of the diocese. He appointed a vicar of pastoral planning, vicar of religious education and two territorial (with jurisdiction) vicars. Throughout the diocese, with Sheen’s approval, parishes began founding lay boards of education and lay advisory councils. Sheen changed the name of the Rochester Chancery, which he thought bureaucratic and impersonal, to the “Pastoral Office.” The new bishop meant what he said about democracy in the diocese. Or so it seemed.
SCHOOL CLOSING SANS CONSULTING
Without consulting anyone, Sheen announced the closing of the Most Precious Blood School in Rochester, attended largely by Italians. When Sheen appeared at the new Becket Hall to bless it, a crowd of Italians were waiting for him. Angry people pounded on his car and waved signs. Some shouted “You son of a bitch” and worse. Sheen locked his car doors and would not emerge until the vehicle was safely inside the institution’s garage. The bishop was greatly shaken. He ordered the school reopened the following day.
SAINT BERNARD’S SEMINARY
Sheen had bold plans for the seminary. In time, a number of non-Catholic professors would be hired. At one point, the bishop wrote a letter to eighty of the world’s leading theologians, inviting them to come to teach at St. Bernard’s. A few responded and faculty were hired from Italy, England and Belgium. The regular faculty wondered where the money was coming from. Some faculty members were worried about retaining their jobs.
Later that year, Protestants were hired to teach pastoral and preaching skills. Psychological testing was employed in order to weed out seminarians who might be emotionally or otherwise unfit. A board of seven laypersons – four men and three women – was created to “assist the seminary authorities in the selection of fit candidates for the altar.” The lay board, Sheen said proudly, was the first of its kind in a Catholic seminary in the United States. The seminary rector, Father Joseph P. Brennan and the faculty were not consulted in advance about the lay board. Brennan invited the bishop and the board members to a get acquainted dinner at the seminary. After dinner, Sheen made a few suggestions and then heard a polite rebuttal from faculty members eager to maintain their prerogatives. Sheen was disenchanted by the women during the first meeting, so he invited only men to the next meeting. He never called the board together again. Some clergy began grumbling about his lack of administrative skills.
Sheen changed the name of the faltering St. Andrew’s Minor Seminary to King’s Preparatory Seminary and made it a co-educational high school. Its aim would be the education of leaders, a “spiritual elite.” These raised eyebrows throughout the diocese. Things did not work out, and King’s Prep closed in 1970.
SPIRITUAL WELFARE OF THE PEOPLE
Sheen was vitally interested in the spiritual welfare of his people. He advised priests and seminarians to adopt his Holy Hour practice. He welcomed the Cursillo movement, urged families to read scripture and acts of self-denial. He initiated Home Masses, giving priests permission to celebrate Mass in private homes during evening hours on weekdays. Sheen took the lead himself, saying Mass in the homes of both blacks and Hispanics and afterwards visiting with attendees.
One day, as the bishop was in Wayland. He bought ice-cream cones for about twenty or thirty children when a little girl came up to him and asked him to visit her sister. “Yes, where is she?” asked Sheen. “She’s dead; she is in the undertaker’s parlor.” Sheen and Hogan (his secretary) went to the funeral home and saw the little seven-year-old girl who had been hit by a car. Sheen wrote later, “She looked alive and appeared like an angel.” Fulton consoled the family, telling them that a great good would come from the accident. In time, two conversions resulted from Sheen’s compassion. He later made a special trip from New York to Rochester to baptize one of the converts
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Bishop Sheen – Part 5
November 4th, 2009, Promulgated by Choir
In May of 1967, Sheen made public a tax he imposed on future construction in the diocese. The rate was to begin at 1.25 percent on buildings costing from $50,000 to $100,000, and go up to 3 percent on projects costing a half-million or more. The proceeds would go to Catholic missionary work and to the needs of the inner city. In fact, Sheen did not favor future construction; he once refused to enter a new rectory because he thought it too ornate.
Sheen made financial reforms aimed at helping both parochial teachers and priests. Teacher in the parochial schools were paid between $2,000 and $3,000 a year in early 1967. The bishop raise all salaries. It was popular with teachers but raised financial difficulties for the system.
When Sheen came to Rochester, a pastor earned about $150 a month; and an associate about $100. As was common across the country, the pastor kept the Christmas offering, which meant that having a large congregation was preferable. The bishop cancelled the Christmas offering and raised clerical salaries across the board. This earned the bishop much clerical resentment. In addition, Sheen established a new diocesan pension plan for priests and set up a priests’ personnel board.
Sheen told of his desire to make the diocese “a microcosm” of Vatican II reforms, but there were deep rumblings of discontent within the diocese. A priest declared, “He has too many plates in the air. Often, he doesn’t follow through.” Many Catholics were protesting by dropping buttons in the collection. Sheen had inherited a large diocesan debt, and his stand on civil rights was making the task of raising funds extremely difficult.
Sheen was clearly in the progressive wing, in the sense of wholly endorsing the reforms of Vatican II and was eager to see them implemented. As our recently deceased diocesan historian, Father Robert F. McNamara has put it, “his one constant fear was that Catholicism would be judged by other Americans as behind the times or irrelevant. Sheen told a synod of bishops meeting in Rome that “it would be important to bring competent laymen into the running of our seminaries because some of them have a deeper spirit of faith than we find in some priests.” He also advocated postponing ordination for two years, as young people were still immature in will and intellect and were “subjected to stimuli that bring about instability of character.” The sentiment did not win friends for the bishop among his clergy and seminarians.
TWO AUXILIARY BISHOPS FOR THE DIOCESE
On January 5, 1968, Pope Paul VI named two auxiliary bishops for the diocese: Dennis Walter Hickey, the vicar general, and John Edgar McCafferty, a member of the Priests’ Council and a former chairman of the Diocesan Ecumenical Commission. They were welcomed by the diocesan clergy, for many were growing cold toward Bishop Sheen.
Sheen knew all the names of the priests and ministered to those who were ailing. But some thought him aloof, and they smarted as his domination of dinnertime discussions. Some resented that he (Sheen) would not permit any of them to be laicized. Some clergy considered the bishop’s policies radical and perhaps designed to keep his name in the headlines. Sheen did not like to attend meetings, and clergy learned quickly that if a committee disagreed with him, he would call no further meetings. Priests discovered that for all his talk of democracy, Sheen had an iron will and was given to doing what he wanted no matter what other thought or said.
GIVING AWAY ST. BRIDGET’S
All of these frustrations came to a head in the spring of 1967. Sheen would give to the federal government the property of St. Bridget’s inner-city parish on which to erect housing for the poor. The Great Society of then President Lyndon B. Johnson was experimenting with a variety of program to improve the lives of the disadvantaged, housing in particular, and Fulton thought the DoR could be a model of what the post-conciliar Church could do to join the effort.
The Vatican and the apostolic delegate knew of his plans; but the diocese, however, did not. Sheen wrote directly to the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD). HUD accepted. On the advice of his chancellor, Father James M. Moynihan (now retired Bishop of Syracuse), Sheen convened the Board of Consultors, a body of priests appointed by the bishop and required by Canon Law. The board approved the offer. Sheen talked with the pastor of St. Bridget’s who was unhappy about the proposed gift. Sheen rejected the suggestion he consult with the people of the parish, on the ground that it would take too long.
Rumors began to leak out. Local urban renewal officials were unhappy, charging that HUD had gone over their heads in making the deal. The congregation of St. Bridget’s was unhappy. The priests were up in arms over the bishop’s exercise of his authority. Bishop Hickey suggested to delay, but Sheen said that the matter had gone too far to turn back. Sheen issued a press release on February 28, 1968, Ash Wednesday, describing the deal he had made with the federal government.
The next morning, six student pickets, who had been working in the parish, protested. Father Francis Vogt, pastor of St. Bridget’s, called the bishop’s gift a “mistake”. Another priest told a reporter, “If the Bishop wants to make some grand gestures, he could move down here and live and then maybe he would be selling his books instead of giving away church property.”
Sheen’s initial comment to the press was hard: “It is the need of the parish, of the diocese and all forces of the community to de-egotize their own interests.” Privately he was agonizing. His usefulness in Rochester was over, he believed, and he decided to resign. “St. Bridget’s was the last straw,” Father Hogan said later.
(The final installment will be out asap)
I think this was the final installment...
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