The next Fulton Sheen?

Last night, I hosted a “Celebration of Archbishop Fulton Sheen” at my parish which was incredible. We had roughly 600 people attending, many of whom left with tears in their eyes after being deeply moved during the event. I will be writing more on the celebration soon in a separate blog post.

But I wanted to mention it because of what happened at its conclusion. Near the end of the celebration, I introduced another event we are hosting in a couple of weeks, an advanced screening of the “CATHOLICISM” project. This project was orchestrated by Fr. Robert Barron and his Word on Fire team, and is essentially an epic 10-part documentary on the Catholic faith which I’ve written about before.

Before showing the film’s trailer, I spent a couple of minutes exploring the connections between Bishop Sheen and Fr. Barron. I’ve long believed that Barron is a modern-day Sheen, and I sincerely believe he will have a similar impact on the world before all is said and done. Both men are top-notch theologians, illustrious writers, and both have a gift for rhetoric and communication. Also, both are “technological prophets”, aptly harnessing the new media of their day. Sheen dominated TV and radio while Barron has tapped the internet and high-definition video. Each man used media tools to spread the allure of Jesus across the world.

Bishop Sheen would not be as well-known today if it wasn’t for his weekly, national TV show. His evangelical impact came in part because he consistently preached for an hour every week, his soul-piercing eyes gazing out into millions of living rooms on a regular basis. Sheen’s visibility combined with his charisma to produce renown. At it’s peak, Sheen’s show was the most-watched on television, garnering over 30-million viewers each week. He even won an Emmy-award for being television’s “Most Outstanding Personality”, and still remains the only religious figure ever to win such an honor. Simply put, no Christian has successfully affected America through media the way Sheen did in the 1950’s.

Being hailed by some as “the next Fulton Sheen”, a description I suggest as well, Fr. Barron has embarked on a similar mission to evangelize the world through media. In an interview I did with Fr. Barron some months back, he suggested that Catholics need to infiltrate secular media outlets, going out so as to draw the culture in. He notes elsewhere that it’s not enough to have massive Catholic media domains. These, while good, mainly draw in Catholics, but they do little to draw in those outside the Church. We need to push out the beauty, intelligence, and provocativeness of the Gospel into secular arenas, ushering the Gospel throughout all the world.

And now, Fr. Barron is attempting to do just that. Word on Fire just announced that Fr. Barron will host a weekly TV show on WGN for one-hour each week, a show that will be broadcast across the entire nation. The show, titled “Word on Fire with Father Robert Barron”, will begin Sunday, October 3 and will air every Sunday at 8:30am eastern time.

With the warped views that culture has of Catholic priests and the Catholic Church, it will be refreshing to see an intelligent, articulate, compassionate figure representing the Church to the world. I’m hoping that Fr. Barron’s show provokes an even larger national platform for his teaching. He is one of the greatest preachers that we have today, and his message needs to boom across the world.

May the prayers of Bishop Sheen, the staunch vision of Fr. Barron, and the potency of the Spirit combine to spread the beauty and grace of Jesus to the world!