Worldwide Masses offered on Archbishop Sheen’s birthday

May 8, 2017 CNA Daily News News Briefs 0 Print

Peoria, Ill., May 8, 2017 / 10:10 am (National Catholic Register).- Today is a good day to join more than 1,000 priests and an even greater number of the faithful in the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass in remembrance of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and with the intention of moving forward his beatification cause.

May 8 marks the archbishop’s 122nd birthday.

The beloved TV evangelist, who was friends with St. John XXIII and Blessed Paul VI, helped bring hundreds — and maybe even thousands of souls — into the Church, with notable converts such as Henry Ford II, politician Clare Booth Luce, actress Virginia Mayo and several of his day’s best-known communists. The actor Ramon Estevez took the archbishop’s surname for his stage name: Martin Sheen.

Archbishop Sheen ordained EWTN’s own Father Andrew Apostoli and is often credited with the fact that many priests make a daily Holy Hour: He constantly exhorted his priestly brethren to adore the Blessed Sacrament.

The idea of birthday Masses in honor of Archbishop Sheen came from his good friend Lo Anne Mayer.

Mayer met Bishop Sheen in 1970 at her parish church. “We just had this instant connection,” she recalled to the Register, and they developed a deep friendship. He even baptized her youngest child.

Mayer previously served on the board for the Archbishop Sheen Foundation, which promotes his canonization cause and long ago sponsored a similar effort.

A hearing this September will seek to resolve a dispute over the Venerable’s mortal remains — which has stalled the canonization caused — between the Archdiocese of New York and Diocese of Peoria, Illinois.

“The only thing that can make a change,” believes Mayer, “is prayer and a lot of it.”

It was while reflecting about the situation on New Year’s Day this year that Mayer remembered the 1,000 Masses that had been offered for the cause previously. She hoped this could be a new way to “storm heaven” in order to help move things along. She made some phone calls, and thus the process began.

The effort employed no website. Instead, it relied on simple word of mouth and people promoting it through social media. Today, what started as an idea has garnered a worldwide response.

In addition to parishes throughout North America, Masses will take place today in roughly 40 countries, including New Zealand, Pakistan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates, Ireland, Germany, Switzerland, France, Cameroon, Australia, Turkey, India, Japan, Indonesia, Croatia, Nepal, Denmark, Ethiopia and Italy, as well as at Marian shrines such as Lourdes and Fatima. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Perry will celebrate Mass. And every parish in Peoria will celebrate its Mass today for the intention of Sheen’s cause. Masses will also take place at St. Patrick Cathedral in New York and at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., where Archbishop Sheen taught theology and philosophy. Indeed, many of the people who helped spread the word and who will celebrate the Masses are people whom Sheen taught. Others who have helped include those who were either converted by him or whose parents were converted by him.

Larry and Bernadette Schumann will attend Mass in Archbishop Sheen’s honor at St. Bede Church in Williamsburg, Virginia. Bernadette once served as Venerable Sheen’s secretary, and the archbishop presided over the couple’s wedding.

According to Catholic News Service, Larry Schumann, now 80, said, “It is our prayer that with these Masses on May 8, 2017, throughout the world, the Holy Spirit will move his cause forward and that his beatification and canonization will soon be realized.”

The Schumanns’ pastor, Msgr. Tim Keeney, told the Register he is happy to participate because “Archbishop Sheen is one of those whom I have read and listened to and who has sustained my priesthood. Priests also need to have the Word preached to them, and Archbishop Sheen, Bishop Robert Barron and the various Holy Fathers who have served during my 21 years of priesthood have been the principle sources that I have sought out for that ministry.”

For her part, Mayer marvels at how this effort has spread through people doing something as old-fashioned and simple as reaching out to one another, calling this priest and contacting that friend.

Reflecting on this phenomenon, she said, “We have heard that Bishop Sheen is being promoted as the [patron] saint of communication, which I think is most appropriate. Looking back, I feel I have the honor of knowing a saint.”

 

This article was originally published in the National Catholic Register.

If you value the news and views Catholic World Report provides, please consider donating to support our efforts. Your contribution will help us continue to make CWR available to all readers worldwide for free, without a subscription. Thank you for your generosity!

Click here for more information on donating to CWR. Click here to sign up for our newsletter.

Related Articles

No Picture
News Briefs

‘Lay co-agents essential for Church leadership’ Detroit archbishop says

April 25, 2019 CNA Daily News 0

Washington D.C., Apr 25, 2019 / 04:10 pm (CNA).- The role of the laity is crucial to the Church’s efforts to combat clerical sex abuse, Archbishop of Allen Vigneron said Thursday morning.

Speaking at The Catholic University of America on April 25, the Detroit archbishop explained that in his own ministry he had seen how lay collaboration is essential in Church governance, and has a natural place with the Church’s hierarchy.

“In order to act well, I recognize that I am in need of what I might call ‘co-agents’–others who help me by thinking and acting along with me,” said Vigneron.

These “co-agents” take the form of both members of the clergy and laity, he explained, and could even include non-Catholics.

Vigneron was speaking at an event titled “The Way Forward: Principles for Effective Lay Action,” part of a series organized by The Catholic Project, Catholic University’s progam dedicated to helping shape the Church’s response to the sexual abuse crisis.

The archbishop identified three particular areas in which co-agents were crucial to his own ministry, including the review board and finance council, and the archdiocesan synod which was convened in 2016.

Recalling that when he arrived in Detroit in 2013 the archdiocese faced a financial crisis, Vigneron said it was his lay advisors who were crucial in rescuing the situation.

“Without the wise advice of the [finance] council, I would not have been able to endorse the course that enabled us to avoid financial disaster,” said Vigneron, adding that the experience  gave him confidence that lay co-agents had an equally important role to play in solving the present sexual abuse crisis.

Vigneron also identified “victim-survivors” of clerical abuse as indispensable guide to helping him understand the trauma of abuse.

Meeting abuse survivors had, he said, “provided a unique and painful perspective of the enormity of the sins perpetrated against these innocents.”

“I hear incredible anger and disappointment, especially from those victim-survivors who have been driven away from the sacraments for the rest of their lives,” he said, while expressing gratitude and admiration for the many who had told him they remained committed to the Church.  

One of the key points of discussion in the ongoing debate about enhanced lay participation in Church accountability is the strain it could place on the hierarchical nature of the Church. The office of bishops to lead and govern the Church is divinely instituted, and many – including in Rome – are reluctant to pursue reforms which could be seen to undermine episcopal authority.

Vigneron rejected the idea that effective lay involvement would necessarily supercede or undermine his role as a bishop.

“It is the final firm determination of the bishop that secures the stable basis for consistent acting,” he said. “And no healthy approach to lay-clergy collaboration can contradict this aspect of Christ’s constitution of his Church.”

Collaboration would be most fruitful and effective, explained the archbishop, when “any actions taken to respond to the challenges of the current crisis are parts of a greater whole” which is in harmony with the Church’s essential nature. The “greater whole,” he said, is the entire work of the Church for the salvation of souls, final responsibility for which rests with the bishop.

“It is the particular competence of the diocesean bishop to be the trustee of this common good and to ensure that all particular ecclesial acts contribute to this end.”

Speaking after the event, Vigneron told CNA that he was preparing for the release of a report into clerical sexual abuse by the Michigan attorney general and that “there will be a great involvement of the lay faithful helping us as this unfolds.”

While the laity could play unique and expert roles in many areas according to their skills and experience, Vigneron said that it is vitally important that all the faithful maintain their prayer lives and work to hold people accountable for inaction.

The archbishop told CNA that healing the scandal of sexual abuse in the Church was a spiritual as well as structural labor.

“All the laity can continue to be engaged at the spiritual level, to realize that if there’s going to be change in the Church, part of it has to be that we all pray for that to happen,” he said.

“The other thing is to continue to hold the pastors accountable, to urge us to do what we need to do to advance the purification of the Church and to support us as we’re engaged in those challenges.”

[…]

Be the first to comment

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published.

All comments posted at Catholic World Report are moderated. While vigorous debate is welcome and encouraged, please note that in the interest of maintaining a civilized and helpful level of discussion, comments containing obscene language or personal attacks—or those that are deemed by the editors to be needlessly combative or inflammatory—will not be published. Thank you.


*