Who Was Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen? An Interview with Msgr. Hilary Franco, Last Living Member of Sheen’s Household

The following is an interview the Lepanto Institute conducted with Msgr. Hilary Franco, peritus of Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen at the Second Vatican Council and member of his episcopal household.

Lepanto Institute: Msgr. Franco, you are the last living member of Venerable Fulton Sheen’s household. Can you explain what it means to be a member of his household and what your role was over the years you knew the saintly Archbishop?

Msgr. Hilary Franco: My title, while with the Bishop, was Assistant to Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the National Director of the Propagation of the Faith. My role went beyond the title, with the Bishop becoming through the years, my ‘Mentor and Friend’ (title of one of my books). Living with the saintly Bishop at 109 East 38th Street in Manhattan was a privilege that changed my entire life.

While I was with him, in the house there were only three of us, the Bishop, myself and Frederick, our Norwegian Lutheran cook who had left the service of Billy Rose (one of the greatest, if not the greatest, entrepreneurs on Broadway at the time) to come and serve the Bishop. Normally (when we would not have, as we did, so many events where the Bishop would be invited to speak) we would have lunch at 12:30 pm. and dinner at 6 pm. Our breakfast would be after the morning Mass. Actually, the Bishop would kneel in front of the Blessed Sacrament in our beautiful Chapel around 6 am and remain there until 7:30 when he would serve my Mass and at 8 o’clock I would serve his Mass (at that time there was no concelebration).

Then the day would start by going to the Office (the 11th and 12th floors at 366 Fifth Avenue). Usually, it would take you and me about ten minutes to do so, but not with the Bishop. It would then take more than 30 minutes, depending on the people who would stop us on the way to get a glimpse, or a kind word, or an autograph, or a photograph (they would always say: ‘Oh! the thrill of my life! Bishop Sheen! Father, can you take a picture of us with the Bishop? And…I would become the photographer! but the Bishop, in his great humility, would patiently stop and abide by what the people would ask). At dinner we would often have celebrities, like TV or Hollywood stars, important politicians, King Baudouin and Queen Fabiola of Belgium, but also common people he would invite, and almost every Friday, we would have a cured leper, Victor Anderson, who had been refused by his family, and the Bishop had found an apartment for him and provided whatever he would need.

Lepanto: You were Fulton Sheen’s peritus at Vatican II; can you tell us about this experience? What did Sheen think of the crisis that hit the Church following the Council?

Msgr. Franco: Being at the Second Vatican Council and serving the saintly Bishop and the bishops of the United States, as you can easily imagine, was a unique experience for a rather young priest at the time. I could dwell for hours recounting episodes that you would not find in any of the so-called reports from the Vatican.

Perhaps one of the difficulties encountered by the American Bishops at the Council was the fact that there was no simultaneous translation and not many of the American bishops were fluent in Latin, as were for instance the Italian or Spanish bishops. That really contributed to perhaps the not getting the nuances that emanated from the so great Conciliar documents, which perhaps contributed to the limited or misunderstood implementation of the conciliar decrees, once the bishops returned to their dioceses.

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen never thought or talked or imagined an existence of a post-conciliar crisis, but rather he was concerned about the lack of the true implementation of the conciliar decrees. He never liked the connotation improperly used for the ‘fathers’ as ‘liberals’ or ‘conservatives’. He would always insist with me: “we in the Church might have different opinions, but should never be labelled with those appellatives. We Church are one!”. And he would add: “Unam, Sanctam, Catholicam et Apostolicam Ecclesiam”.

I would suggest reading the intervention of the saintly Bishop at the Council on the Church of the Poor (Nov. 9, 1964). When the President of the day announced the forthcoming speech of the Bishop, every bishop returned to his seat, even those who were debating issues at one or the other of the two coffee bars present in the Council Hall.

Lepanto: Sheen died shortly after John Paul II became Pope. What were his thoughts about the new Pope at the beginning of his pontificate? You received letters from Sheen regularly. What are some of the notable things he told you in his letters? Can you verify the authenticity of a letter that has been circulating by Sheen about Archbishop Lefebvre and the SSPX?

Msgr. Franco: As you know, Bishop Sheen was a prophet in so many ways and instances, but to me, the most impressive way of expressing that gift that he had received from the Lord was when in more than one of the handwritten letters (now, first class relics, since, in writing he had naturally touched the letters) that he addressed to me almost every month until he died, where he actually gives me the profile and the program of the just elected Pope! I then lived, thank God and His Blessed Mother, to see the fulfilment in detail of what he had written about Saint John Paul II.

The letter you included in your message is definitely not authentic. Written in 1978, Bishop Sheen was already an Archbishop with four tassels in his coat of arms. Besides, his ‘motto’ was “Da Per Matrem Me Venire” and not “Pax et Bonum”.

Lepanto: Fulton Sheen is known to have brought Bella Dodd, a former communist agent, into the Catholic Church. She said that she was personally responsible for sending thousands of communists into Catholic seminaries to infiltrate the Church and ruin it from within. Archbishop Sheen said he saw her list of infiltrators and that it included high ranking bishops, but he decided not to publish the list. Do you know some of the names of those Bella Dodd sent into the seminaries. Did you ever see this list? What effects do you think this infiltration has had on the Church? Are we still dealing with the effects?

Msgr. Franco: I have never met Bella Dodd. I do know the Louis Budenz, who was the head of the Communist Party in the US and was a convert of the Bishop and I have met several times also Claire Boothe Luce. When Pius XII asked the Bishop how many converts he had made, the Bishop’s response to the Holy Father was: “Your Holiness, I have never counted them, not to have the temptation to think that they are mine”.

Lepanto: Fulton Sheen is well known for practicing and promoting the daily Eucharistic Holy Hour. Can you tell us about his example of prayer and his love for Christ in the Eucharistic?

Msgr. Franco: I have mentioned before what our early daily routine was. He would kneel down in front of His Lord in the Blessed Sacrament for much more than an hour. Wherever we went across the world, the more than Holy Hour would be the most important part of our day.  He would always recommend the Holy Hour in the many retreats that he preached to clergy and lay people. I actually feel that the secret of his great success in his preaching would always stem from that Holy Hour.  By the way, the back door of our Chapel would always be opened to the huge study with hundreds of books and his writing desk where, facing the Blessed Sacrament, he would write his 72 bestsellers. His TV programs (our audience was 40% Catholic, 30% Protestant and 30% Jewish) were also a success because of his connection to the Blessed Sacrament.

Lepanto: Fulton Sheen was unafraid to oppose the world. In his TV broadcasts, he would often say that in the West, hedonism wants a Christ without the Cross, and communism wants the Cross without Christ. He also wrote in his Life of Christ that, while other men are born to live, Christ alone was born to die, to redeem the world through the Cross. Can you tell us about the significance of the Cross in Sheen’s own life and his vision of the world?

Msgr. Franco: The saintly Bishop in his life and in his public appearances had shown on so many different occasions that he was always following what Jesus had asked of his disciples: “Sermo vester sit: est, est; non, non”. “Your talk should be: yes, yes. no, no”.  He was never, ever, even in most difficult circumstances when his stand with truth would mean suffering for him, he would always stand for the evangelical way of life. The Bishop was always guided by the Cross (he asked and received from his friend Salvador Dali permission to use his Cross of Saint John for the cover of his – the Bishop’s – Life of Christ). He would always repeat that there cannot be a divorce between the Cross and the Crucified. The West had decided to retain only the Jesus on the Cross (almost thinking of Jesus as a teacher or a guru), and the East (with its suffering and persecutions) had just the Cross. He used to say, since that divorce cannot exist, who will eventually get the whole Crucified Lord? He felt that, because of the suffering, the East would have the whole Christ first.

Lepanto: Fulton Sheen was a learned bishop; he was taught by the famous Thomistic philosopher and theologian Charles De Konnick in Laval and himself taught philosophy for several years at the Catholic University of America. Do you think the doctrinal problems facing the Church today and the widespread dissent from Catholic teaching comes in part from the fact that many bishops no longer possess in depth the wisdom of philosophy and theology? Does the Church need to return to the days in which bishops were required to be learned philosophers and theologians?

Msgr. Franco: Even though in the Bishop’s life and writings we could discover three stages: the first was philosophical – after all, he had been an “Agregé en Philosophie” at the University of Louvain in Belgium (his doctoral thesis was actually his first book: “God and Intelligence” with a forward from Chesterton) and he taught philosophy and theology at Catholic University in Washington, DC, for 25 years; the second stage had an emphasis on psychology; and the third stage, the emphasis was on Sacred Scripture.

Still, I believe that the real great success of the saintly bishop is not to be found in excessive learning, but rather in his spiritual connection with the Spirit from above, in what I hinted before, in his presence in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  Relying excessively on philosophical or theological formation is not going to give us bishops according to the Heart of Jesus and to His evangelical teachings and actions (Matthew 11:25).

Lepanto: Can you tell us about the saintly death and last days of Venerable Fulton Sheen?

 Msgr. Franco: It was during the Holy Hour – he told me numerous times – since his Ordination, that he asked the Lord three things: 1) that he would be active until the age of 80; 2) that he die possibly around a Feast of the Blessed Mother; and 3) that he die in front of the Tabernacle.

Well, I have to guess that he got his wishes: he was active almost until the end and when he died at the age of 84, he was found the morning of December 9th (the Feast of the Immaculate Conception is Dec. 8th), kneeling in the small chapel of the apartment where he had retired, in front of the Blessed Sacrament.  Would you say that the response of the Lord to his three wishes could be considered a sign of sanctity? I personally believe so.

Lepanto: Archbishop Fulton Sheen will be beatified this September. Will you be present for that occasion? What are your thoughts as we approach his beatification?

Msgr. Franco: Of course, always with the help of God and His Blessed Mother, I intend to be present at his Beatification, even though, living and working with him for so long, I had always felt that I was in the presence of a Saint.  The only regret I have is that we had to wait so long to have the official declaration.