Our Co-Patron

A Voice in the Wilderness

Blessed Fulton J. Sheen

The Order claims as its Co-Patron Blessed Fulton J. Sheen — that great son of the American Church, that titan of the Faith, that voice crying in the wilderness of the twentieth century.

Archbishop Sheen understood, perhaps better than any man of his age, that the crisis of the modern world was not political, not economic, not social — it was spiritual. It was a crisis of souls. And he spent every breath God gave him fighting for those souls.

He stood before the cameras of a skeptical, secular nation and spoke the truths of the Catholic Faith with clarity, with charity, and with a wit sharper than any sword. He spoke of sin when the world denied it. He spoke of redemption when the world had forgotten it needed saving. He spoke of Our Lady when even some within the Church had grown embarrassed by her.

A Life

From Peoria to the Whole World

He was born Peter John Sheen on 8 May 1895 in El Paso, Illinois, the son of a farmer, and took his mother's maiden name. He was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria on 20 September 1919, and on that day he made two resolutions he kept for sixty years: a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day, and his life given over to Our Lady.

He was sent to study, and he outgrew every room he was put in. At Louvain he took the doctorate and became the first American awarded the agrégé en philosophie, with the Cardinal Mercier Prize for international philosophy. He might have spent his life in a lecture hall — he taught at the Catholic University of America for a quarter century — but he had a voice, and the age had just invented the means to carry it.

The Radio Years

1930 – 1950

From 1930 he preached on The Catholic Hour on NBC. Over twenty years the audience grew into the millions, and the letters came by the sack — from Catholics, from Protestants, from Jews, from men who believed nothing at all. He answered them.

Life Is Worth Living

1952 – 1957

In 1952 he was given a television slot opposite Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra, in a time no one expected a bishop to survive. He walked out in choir dress before a blackboard, with no script and no studio audience to prompt him, and he beat them. In 1952 he received an Emmy for Most Outstanding Television Personality. Accepting it, he thanked his writers: Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.

III

Bishop and Missionary

1950 – 1969

He was consecrated bishop in 1951 and served as National Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith from 1950 to 1966, directing the missionary alms of American Catholics abroad — and giving away, quietly, most of what he earned. He was Bishop of Rochester from 1966, and was named titular Archbishop of Newport in 1969.

He died on 9 December 1979 and was found in his private chapel, before the Blessed Sacrament, where he had spent an hour of every day of his priesthood. Benedict XVI declared him Venerable on 28 June 2012, and he was beatified on 24 September 2026 at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Missouri, at a Mass celebrated by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as legate of Pope Leo XIV. His feast is kept on 9 December — the day he died, as the Church reckons the birthday of her saints. The Order prayed for that day through all its short life; it keeps his feast now with gratitude.

A Marian Priest

Everything Through His Mother

Sheen had a profound and tender devotion to the Blessed Virgin Mary. He attributed every grace of his priesthood and apostolate to her intercession. He consecrated himself to Our Lady on the day of his ordination and renewed that consecration every single day of his priestly life, offering his Saturday Mass in her honour. He wrote of her at length in The World’s First Love, and said that a man who loves the Mother will not long be a stranger to her Son.

He made a Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament every day for more than sixty years, and said that everything he ever accomplished came out of it. He feared no one but God. He compromised nothing. And he won countless souls for Christ through His Mother.

"Blessed Fulton J. Sheen — pray for us." — Prayer of the Order

Why He Is Our Co-Patron

The Model We Carry Into Every Battle

He is our Co-Patron because he is the living proof that a militant Catholic in the modern age need carry no weapon but truth, spoken with love and backed by prayer. He fought with a microphone, a pen, and a Holy Hour, and he was more dangerous to the enemy than any army.

He is our Co-Patron because he united in one life everything this Order aspires to: the healing of souls, the teaching of the Faith, fidelity to Holy Tradition, and a life formed around Our Lady. The Church raised him to the altars on 24 September 2026; we pray now for his canonisation.