The John-Henry Westen Show - Tabernacle Off to the Side？ Archbishop Sheen Would Have NONE of It

00:00:00.000 People are getting the Catholic faith in an orthodox way, and they're looking at what the churches are saying in modernist churches and saying, I reject that.

00:00:11.720 Hey, my friends, as we come up to the beatification of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, the great American bishop, there's something you should know.

00:00:21.840 He was a bishop of tradition.

00:00:25.420 And we're going to find that out from what I'd say is the biggest promoter of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen ever.

00:00:32.920 He was there at his funeral, and he's going to tell us all about that

00:00:37.620 because he spent the last four decades promoting Bishop Sheen.

00:00:44.300 Terry Barber is with us, my friends.

00:00:46.220 Stay tuned.

00:00:47.160 Terry Barber, so good to be with you, my friend.

00:00:48.700 God bless you.

00:00:49.520 God bless you, John Henry.

00:00:50.540 Let's begin as we always do, with the sign of the cross.

00:00:53.400 In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.

00:00:58.700 It's so funny because you're at your studio with your absolutely regular background,

00:01:03.940 no changing it out for this show or this program or this time in the church where finally Bishop

00:01:10.760 Sheen is being beatified because this is what you do and what you have been doing with no fanfare

00:01:16.560 and no one else, but here you are. Perfect backdrop for this show and for this time.

00:01:21.660 Thank you, John Henry, and I'm very excited because I didn't realize until I had a call

00:01:27.280 about a book they wanted to publish on Bishop Sheen, so they called me and said,

00:01:31.360 you know, you've been promoting Bishop Sheen since 1979, and you've distributed millions

00:01:37.540 of his recordings through Lighthouse Catholic Media, St. Joseph Communications, Virgin Most

00:01:42.340 Powerful Radio. I want to hear your story. So, John Henry, I thought if it's okay with you,

00:01:47.760 I could tell my story to the LifeSite News listeners about how it all happened and how

00:01:53.720 God works with the weak to confound the wicked, as the biblical Bible says. So, here's what

00:02:00.100 happened, John Henry. Back in 1979, December 9th, Bishop Sheen died. When I got the word on a Sunday

00:02:06.680 night, I said to my mom and dad, you know, remember, I'm about 21 years old. I just came out of the

00:02:11.800 monastery uh from marytown at franciscan and i'm saying well you know bishop sheen touched me so

00:02:18.480 much i would love to go to the funeral let me see if i can get a standby ticket they don't have those

00:02:24.160 anymore but okay i took a standby ticket 88 one way to new york a red eye from los angeles x

00:02:31.520 airport i get there about 3 30 in the morning i get a cab to saint patrick's cathedral i wait

00:02:40.060 five hours in line with hundreds of people outside St. Patrick's Cathedral. I've got a

00:02:46.140 suitcase in my hand. And while I'm talking to people, because I talk to everybody, you know

00:02:52.940 that about me, hundreds of people I spoke to in those five hours, and they all had one thing in

00:02:59.000 common. Bishop Sheen's a saint. He brought me to the faith. Here's what he did. Here's what I,

00:03:04.180 I mean, I had people telling me stories where they watched Volton Sheen on Life is Worth Living

00:03:09.420 television in the 50s, and they wanted to become a Catholic, they wrote to him. Fulton Sheen would

00:03:16.160 send them records and say, you're going to start now. This is the same bishop who on his deathbed

00:03:22.100 was still giving instructions to people about becoming Catholic. That zeal is what I think

00:03:27.900 the church needs today. So here's what happened. While I'm in line at the funeral, remember John

00:03:35.120 Henry, we didn't have the internet. ABC was a big network across America. It was only like five or

00:03:41.580 six back then. They come up to me and they say, young man, where are you from? And I said, Los

00:03:46.940 Angeles. He said, what? They put a mic in front of me and they said, why would a young man fly

00:03:52.880 all the way from Los Angeles to come to New York for a funeral of an elderly bishop? And I told

00:03:59.780 him right up front. Why? Because he taught me the meaning and purpose of life. I was 14 years old.

00:04:06.220 I was going to daily mass. I loved Jesus. And one of my parishioners gave me Bishop Sheen's

00:04:12.520 priest retreat. I wore those tapes out, John Henry. I kept listening about the Eucharist,

00:04:18.240 about Our Lady. Now, I grew up on the Baltimore Catechism, so I had the fundamental of the faith.

00:04:24.160 But man, Fulton Sheen took me to another level.

00:04:27.180 So I was excited about that.

00:04:29.520 And then after the funeral, John Henry, you know about this,

00:04:32.920 and I'll use the word infamous Religious Ed Congress in Los Angeles, California,

00:04:38.380 that's just 30 minutes from where I live.

00:04:40.680 I went there in 1980 to promote Bishop Sheen's life is worth living.

00:04:45.980 Now you got to remember, I'm with a youth group, and I'm like,

00:04:49.840 we're here to promote Fulton Sheen.

00:04:51.660 And the first thing happens to me is a priest tells me, young man, you might as well throw those cassette tapes in the trash.

00:04:59.580 Bishop Sheen is antiquated.

00:05:01.820 We have a new church.

00:05:03.440 He doesn't fit in.

00:05:05.260 And, you know, my respect for the priesthood, John Henry, I'm 21.

00:05:09.100 I said, oh, thank you, Father.

00:05:10.300 I wanted you to have these cassette tapes because it would be good for material for your homilies.

00:05:14.360 But, you know, if you don't want them, hey, no problem.

00:05:17.460 Have a great day.

00:05:19.120 So at that moment, John Henry, I could have said, he's right, stop, close up shop.

00:05:25.660 No.

00:05:26.500 As a young man, that made me work harder.

00:05:29.460 And millions of those recordings, he said, are antiquated, have gone all around the world,

00:05:34.100 and they're still going through, they're still being played on EWTN.

00:05:37.320 As of today, they play all my life is worth living shows from Bishop Sheen.

00:05:42.740 So then he asked me, well, okay, he helped you.

00:05:45.640 I said, he needs to go back on television and on radio. So they said, okay, young man, well,

00:05:51.820 God bless you, and I'm done. So I fly back to New York right after the funeral, get back about 4.30

00:05:58.880 in the morning, and I finally get to bed, and I'm thinking, is this a dream, or did this actually

00:06:04.040 happen? Well, it did. So then, you know, I start promoting Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth Living

00:06:09.500 to all the Catholic newspapers back then, the Twin Circle, the National Catholic Register,

00:06:14.560 or Sunday Visitor. And I started selling 100, 200 units a day of Fulton Sheen, people who are

00:06:22.320 starving for this work. And that started St. Joseph Communications. And then when I met all

00:06:28.320 these converts from Dr. Scott Hahn to Father, all these different people, Father Bill Casey,

00:06:33.980 Tim Staples, I would give Ken Hensley, all these guys, I would give Bishop Sheen's Life is Worth

00:06:39.700 Living, and they all said it to me, wow, this is the best I've heard on an explanation of the

00:06:46.260 Catholic faith. So we just started promoting these, and it grew into the largest distributor

00:06:52.700 of Catholic cassettes back then in the 1980s and 90s, and then I turned it over to Lighthouse

00:06:58.780 Catholic Media in the 2000s. In 1985, I put Bishop Sheen on radio in Southern California

00:07:05.900 until the Protestant radio station stopped us

00:07:10.180 because they were having too many complaints about Fulton Sheen.

00:07:14.100 And so that made me work even harder.

00:07:16.540 And then when we only had five radio stations,

00:07:19.120 Catholic radio stations in America around the 1990s,

00:07:23.580 I got involved with Immaculate Heart Radio and Doug Sherman.

00:07:26.980 And yeah, the rest is history.

00:07:28.440 We now have 800 Catholic radio stations.

00:07:31.860 And yes, I was a little bit instrumental in helping that start,

00:07:35.900 But my charism, John Henry, is start something and then run away.

00:07:39.880 It works better that way.

00:07:41.740 A lighthouse, St. Joseph community, all these things.

00:07:44.660 I know my weaknesses and I know my strengths.

00:07:47.340 And I'm actually very happy to promote Fulton Sheen

00:07:51.240 because I've seen people, priests,

00:07:54.540 who said it wouldn't be a Catholic priest if it wasn't for Fulton Sheen.

00:07:58.420 And I can tell you, I've had priests tell me

00:08:01.760 that it was Fulton Sheen, the daily holy hour, which I do every day. I was in my chapel this

00:08:08.160 morning at 4.30 in the morning. Why? To pray before my day starts. Because I know, John Henry,

00:08:15.000 I'm weak like you. Without prayer, we're done. We're toast. I'm sorry, I'm not giving anything

00:08:21.580 to say, but the point I'm trying to convey to you is Fulton Sheen fired me up. So when I saw

00:08:26.800 people are embracing this i was i mean in 1985 i was at a protestant church where the guy was a

00:08:33.540 former catholic priest telling everybody leave the catholic church so i got there to defend the holy

00:08:39.460 mother of the church and they carried me out of the church because i asked some tough questions

00:08:45.180 it's in my book how to share your faith with anyone they threw me out and i had hundreds of

00:08:49.880 fulton sheen cassette tapes i said to everybody there at the protestant church if you want to

00:08:54.200 know what the Catholic Church teaches? Go to Fulton Sheen. John Henry in 1985, right on the

00:09:00.000 spot, those people who heard Fulton Sheen called me and said, I'm back. So why do you think I'm

00:09:05.260 promoting it? Because it's important that people know the meaning and purpose of life. And in

00:09:09.780 today's church, we're lacking that. And so you can imagine how happy I am that we're having him

00:09:17.020 beatified and soon canonized because the church needs someone who's clear in his teachings of

00:09:23.600 the faith. Now, one more thing I will mention, and then I'll, I can, I've given you the short

00:09:28.440 version because this is turning into a book, a chapter in a book, but you have to remember the

00:09:34.060 work, the Fulton Sheen, my parents were suffering greatly. I had a dad who for 10 years was in a

00:09:42.560 wheelchair and had about 20 different brain operations, and he was like a child, and I would

00:09:49.560 set him in the room where we would duplicate cassette tapes of Fulton Sheen, and he would

00:09:55.060 say prayers for the people who were going to listen to these cassettes. And as a child, he'd

00:10:00.000 say an Our Father, a Hail Mary, and a Glory Be. John Henry, God hears the prayers of a child,

00:10:06.140 and he also hears the prayers of elderly people sincerely praying. And I believe that that also

00:10:12.660 affected the outcome of all these cassettes now one last thing i'll tell you my mom who worked 30

00:10:20.000 some years with me also had brain cancer she's in a in a in a hospital bed now she's not sitting

00:10:27.560 down and waiting for god calling her home she clamped 30 000 cds for lighthouse every month

00:10:33.960 every day eight hours a day she would put a cassette a cd back then in the 90s in the early

00:10:39.720 2000s, and

00:10:41.580 she would clamp it, and they would

00:10:43.860 go into churches. We had 8,800

00:10:45.820 parishes at that time, and

00:10:47.800 here's the kicker, John. She's dying

00:10:49.900 two weeks out. It takes

00:10:51.960 her two and a half minutes. I

00:10:53.600 videotaped her putting one

00:10:55.800 CD in a clam, because

00:10:57.960 after brain surgery, her

00:10:59.660 hands couldn't work that well, but

00:11:01.940 she did it with love and devotion,

00:11:03.900 and then she would say to me,

00:11:05.780 we'll pray that that soul will be touched

00:11:07.720 with the message of Christ.

00:11:09.280 That was my mom.

00:11:10.580 That was my dad.

00:11:11.500 And you wonder where I'm at today?

00:11:13.620 Because they understood the salvation of souls.

00:11:16.920 And that's why I keep saying, Bishop Sheen says,

00:11:19.620 if souls are saved, everything is saved.

00:11:21.720 If souls aren't saved, nothing is saved.

00:11:24.380 So through the cross of my parents,

00:11:27.860 the work that I've been involved with for 47, 48 years,

00:11:32.480 I believe was the fruit of the prayers of suffering parents 0.64

00:11:37.300 for this knucklehead, because as I said, John Henry, God uses the weak to confound the strong.

00:11:44.420 That's the short version, because I wanted to make it shorter than longer. If people really 0.91

00:11:50.040 want to hear more of that, I know we have it on Virgin Most Powerful Radio, but the book's

00:11:54.700 supposedly going to come out in September from Emmaus Press. That's Scott Hahn's publishing

00:12:01.320 house, and any good that we do comes from God. We thank him for it, but I got to tell you,

00:12:07.300 Anytime I can promote Fulton Sheen's message of the Catholic faith,

00:12:12.400 I don't see anybody better.

00:12:14.760 And I can tell you, hundreds of converts I've spoken to

00:12:18.260 who have listened to these convert courses by Sheen.

00:12:21.280 And I'll tell your listeners right now, if someone wants the 50 shows,

00:12:25.040 you actually have it, John Henry.

00:12:26.980 I remember talking years ago.

00:12:28.880 You listen to those.

00:12:30.540 If someone wants it on a download, go to vmpr.org.

00:12:33.740 That's our website.

00:12:34.420 I give all the converts in the entire church free copies for that.

00:12:40.220 Why do I do that, John Henry?

00:12:41.780 Because I'm going to be honest with you.

00:12:43.680 I don't beat around the bush.

00:12:44.740 That's why I get in trouble. 1.00

00:12:46.240 The convert courses in most Catholic churches are terrible. 1.00

00:12:50.140 They don't get doctrine. 0.93

00:12:51.500 So what do we do?

00:12:53.020 We give them the option of having Bishop Sheen bring them into the faith.

00:12:55.900 I think I've said enough on my story about Fulton Sheen.

00:12:58.800 All I can say is when I was at the funeral, I took a miraculous medal.

00:13:03.280 When nobody was looking and stuck it in the casket of Fulton Sheen, and when he was buried at St. Patrick's Cathedral and then moved to Peoria, Illinois, I was told that they would give me that medal back.

00:13:18.880 But so far, I haven't gotten it back yet, but that was my little story about going to the funeral, and I just felt like inspired.

00:13:26.500 I saw the man standing there with a suit looking official. He wasn't looking, so I put my medal right in the casket of Fulton Sheen.

00:13:33.280 And I hope and pray, John Henry, that the effect of Fulton Sheen on the church is a true renewal of doctrine and tradition, because that kind of leads you up to what we all wanted to talk about.

00:13:46.500 I have stories of Fulton Sheen when he became the bishop up in Rochester, New York, and how he got there and saw the, I'll say, modernism.

00:13:59.020 He saw it firsthand.

00:13:59.960 In fact, he predicted exactly what we're going through. 0.98

00:14:03.900 It's funny because he talked about the ape of the church. 0.96

00:14:08.440 Let me just read his quotes.

00:14:10.000 This is from Bishop Sheen.

00:14:11.680 He said, in 1948, Bishop Sheen wrote,

00:14:15.820 and which is strikingly relevant and significant for the current situation,

00:14:19.960 just what you said.

00:14:21.180 Listen to this.

00:14:21.840 Satan, Satan will set up a counter church, 0.97

00:14:25.780 will be the ape of the church. 0.66

00:14:28.180 It will have all the notes and characteristics of the church, but in reverse, and it emptied

00:14:33.720 of its divine content. 0.85

00:14:36.140 The false prophet will have a religion without a cross. 0.98

00:14:40.000 That's what we got right now. 0.98

00:14:42.200 A religion without a world to come, a religion to destroy religions. 0.99

00:14:47.400 There will be a counterfeit church, Christ's church will be one, and the false prophet 0.97

00:14:53.580 will create the other. 0.92

00:14:55.440 The false church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. 0.96

00:15:00.460 Sound familiar, John Henry? 0.84

00:15:01.980 It will be a loose federation of churches and religions,

00:15:06.080 forming some type of global association,

00:15:09.480 a world parliament of churches.

00:15:12.140 It will be emptied of all divine content,

00:15:14.540 and it will be the mystical body of the Antichrist.

00:15:18.700 Whoa!

00:15:19.520 The mystical body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot,

00:15:23.600 and it will be the false prophet and this is the statement that shook me satan will recruit him

00:15:31.920 from our bishops so that is the most stunning and this is part of the reason why i assume that

00:15:40.640 it was so hard to move sheen across the finish line to beatification because boy he was not

00:15:49.140 tame when it came to kind of calling it out. And the difficulty with today's church is his

00:15:56.940 prophecy, which I call a prophecy, even though he could probably see it coming, like brilliant

00:16:02.000 people can see the future coming. And the pro-life movement, we always said, oh, well,

00:16:06.860 they're killing babies. Eventually, they're just going to kill the elderly as well. 0.98

00:16:10.320 And everyone's like, oh, come on. But I mean, it was obvious, right? But perhaps it was like that. 0.94

00:16:15.080 but nonetheless, it's a prophecy. It's fulfilled today like nothing before. It was just stunning.

00:16:20.740 He gave us that. He warned us of that. What did he say, though, was the solution?

00:16:26.340 Even before the 60s, when he had some stories there, but I want to tell you one story that

00:16:31.180 jumped out at me in 1976 with Mother Teresa of Calcutta in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania,

00:16:37.700 at the Eucharistic Congress. Okay, this was thousands of people there. He gave a talk called

00:16:42.640 Mary and the Eucharist. I give it out to everybody. It's a powerful talk. He says this,

00:16:48.680 the problem in the church is that we have a de-Eucharization going on. We're taking the

00:16:55.940 blessed sacrament and moving him to the side, and we're replacing it with a tin God. I didn't make 0.99

00:17:02.400 that up, John Henry. The tin God is the priest. And he said, we need to bring Jesus Christ back

00:17:07.400 to our church in a rightful place so much so john henry that i also have stories of fulton sheen

00:17:14.040 where when he would go to give a talk after his retirement in the 70s if the church had the

00:17:20.480 blessed sacrament on the side he would not give a talk until they remove they take jesus and put

00:17:26.360 him back in his rightful place yes he would not do it and i'll give you one example at a monastery

00:17:30.860 where it was a benedictine monastery i won't give the name but you figure it out he's given

00:17:37.080 this talk and he said brothers i'm sorry we're not going to start you bring my lord back to the

00:17:43.040 center of this church where he belongs now you talk about tradition now again john henry we see

00:17:50.060 this taking place in the church today that many churches are putting jesus back into the center

00:17:56.420 of the church i've just had it two miles away in covina here another church just did it recently

00:18:01.280 Now, I'm convinced that we're bypassing the institutional church by lay organizations like LifeSite News and Virgin Most Powerful and all these other good organizations.

00:18:16.240 People are getting the Catholic faith in an orthodox way, and they're looking at what the churches are saying in modernist churches and saying,

00:18:24.780 I reject that. I want a traditional liturgy. I don't want to see Jesus on the side of the altar.

00:18:30.700 I want to see Jesus' center,

00:18:33.340 you know, sourcing some of the Christian life

00:18:35.800 is the Eucharist.

00:18:36.820 Now, here's another thing about tradition

00:18:38.600 that a lot of people didn't know.

00:18:40.920 There's a Monsignor,

00:18:42.640 Monsignor Hilary Frankel.

00:18:45.280 And in an interview before Fulton Sheen died,

00:18:47.760 now, this was his secretary

00:18:49.520 in the 1950s and early 60s.

00:18:53.220 And he tells these stories

00:18:54.420 of how Fulton Sheen was so much into tradition.

00:18:58.320 Like, for example, you know,

00:18:59.980 we've talked about the cassock. For those who don't know what the cassock is, it's what the

00:19:03.320 priest wears. It looks like a dress, right? No, it's a cassock. And most priests in our day,

00:19:08.620 when I was a little boy, wore it. Well, Bishop Sheen noticed that the discipline was changing

00:19:15.600 in the late 60s. And as a priest and as a bishop, he would call them out and say,

00:19:21.680 get your cassock back on, get back to the disciplines of the church. This is not good

00:19:26.520 for the church. Now, he wrote to the Monsignor who worked in the congregation of the faith in

00:19:31.020 Rome, and saying, you know, we need to nip this in the bud. And he said, tell Rome, this is Bishop

00:19:39.220 Sheen, tell them that these bishops they're picking need to be orthodox, because he used

00:19:46.780 the word heterodox. Now, that's a term for theologians, right? But that means false teachers,

00:19:52.340 So modernism, basically.

00:19:54.220 And so Fulton Sheen told these archbishops, even in person,

00:19:57.780 why are you letting these seminarians, you know,

00:20:00.200 all these things that they're wanting to do with no cassock, no discipline?

00:20:03.880 And he said, they would never give me a response.

00:20:05.800 They'd say, oh, man, be quiet.

00:20:06.900 When you say cassocks, it is the one that they wear that, as you said, looks like a dress.

00:20:13.000 But as opposed to what?

00:20:15.440 Because there's the pantsuit version with the collar and the pants.

00:20:20.640 that's what he was objecting to that the going from the cassock which was the more traditional

00:20:26.420 to the pantsuit uh what would he have made of the hawaiian shirt and nothing it disturbed him

00:20:32.860 greatly because i got letters from from monsignor showing where fulton sheen was complaining to rome

00:20:38.280 about these modernists in the church and he was saying uh you know kind of like what monsignor

00:20:44.260 george kelly said where's the church going where its leaders take them and fulton sheen was

00:20:49.080 advocating in Rome to say, get us some good bishops, because the bishops that are coming in

00:20:55.840 do not have the faith. This is Fulton Sheen in the 60s. Now, one thing he did say that blew me

00:21:03.160 away, and I didn't know this, but when he became the Bishop of Rochester, the seminarians, he wanted

00:21:09.340 to test the seminarians for their knowledge and love of the faith, because he has to sign off and

00:21:15.020 say this man is ready to be ordained. Are you ready, folks? A third of the candidates in his

00:21:21.820 diocese were rejected by him. Who told you that? Not many people know that. That's a fact from

00:21:27.760 the Monsignor telling me that. So what did he say? He said, these men, this is going to hurt the

00:21:32.800 church. He said, too many men were being ordained in the 60s and 70s that should have never been

00:21:38.840 ordained because they had compromised on the formation and the church would pay a terrible

00:21:44.840 price. And he was prophetic, John Henry. We had a lot of those priests ordained when they should

00:21:50.460 have never been ordained. What was the problem he found with them? The formation. In the letter,

00:21:55.020 he said the formation. They didn't know what the priesthood was about. Let me give you an example.

00:21:59.420 He talks about six seminarians that were in his diocese, and he wanted to take them to see a lady

00:22:06.240 who was in an iron lung. Now, that's kind of old fat, but an iron lung where she would die if she

00:22:11.520 couldn't have the respirator breathe for her. And this woman told those six seminarians,

00:22:19.700 she was a victim soul, right? I'm going to pray for the six of you guys that you'll be really

00:22:26.000 on fire Catholic priests, and that you'll stay focused on your priesthood, and that the world, 1.00

00:22:31.040 the devil and the flesh will not overcome you. What a great prayer, right? You know what those 0.97

00:22:36.380 six guys told that woman, oh, don't worry about that.

00:22:41.120 Don't worry about praying.

00:22:42.240 We're going to be taken care of because everybody, you know,

00:22:45.440 we are part of the world.

00:22:47.600 They lost it.

00:22:48.460 They gave an explanation saying this thing about the cross and the victimhood.

00:22:53.420 No, that's not what we believe about the priesthood.

00:22:55.980 We're like, you know, we just want to be with the people.

00:22:58.680 Come on, we're like them.

00:23:00.040 And that's one of the reasons Fulton Sheen would not ordain those guys.

00:23:04.020 They lost it.

00:23:04.980 They don't have the faith.

00:23:05.880 Did he talk about, there's certain things that right now are sort of characteristic of the modernist church, if you will.

00:23:13.900 One of the big ones came up just a few days ago when Father Perricone was interviewed on Matt Fradd.

00:23:19.800 He talked about how, you know, he asked Mother Teresa, you know, what's the worst thing you've ever seen?

00:23:24.800 And she replies, communion in the hand.

00:23:28.860 And of course, a lot of people flipped out like, what?

00:23:31.300 How could you say that? 1.00

00:23:32.120 That's ridiculous. 0.98

00:23:32.700 this, because that's like the practice now everywhere. And yet it shows such dishonor 0.98

00:23:40.180 to our Lord. And that's what, you know, Mother Teresa was all about. John Paul II, too, he made

00:23:45.880 the example to try and get everyone to receive kneeling in on the tongue, as did Benedict. Did

00:23:50.820 you come across anything from Bishop Sheen about that? No, but I think you can presume,

00:23:55.660 but when he talks about the de-Eucharization going on in the church, that communion in the hand

00:24:00.440 is just that because we know you know it you did the statistics we all know that people's belief

00:24:06.900 in the real presence went down when we started giving communion in the hand that's just a fact

00:24:12.760 and so i think if fulton sheen was alive today oh yeah he would have said he would have said that

00:24:18.460 i remember back in the early 90s hearing that mother theresa said that but i couldn't find

00:24:25.480 the source. She said that. Oh, no, that's not fair. Well, now we know the source.

00:24:32.520 And let's be honest, John Henry. Let's just be brutally honest. If we don't have a belief in

00:24:38.420 the Eucharist, what do you believe? I mean, what are we going to church? What is the mass?

00:24:45.000 People have no clue. And this is why so few people go to confession. And Fulton Sheen said it

00:24:51.520 in his talks over the years that the worst thing isn't sin, the denial of sin. And this is what

00:24:59.340 we have today. People don't believe that they're sinners. They're immaculately conceived. He used

00:25:05.200 to use that word. No, they're wrong. And so this, I believe, with the canonization will bring back

00:25:11.980 orthodoxy on saying about our fall in our human nature. Because John Henry, you and I have been

00:25:18.020 around. We see priests, we see the church in certain churches saying that, you know, there's

00:25:24.140 no such thing as mortal sin. What? Are you serious? Yes, and everybody goes to heaven, universal

00:25:30.660 salvation. Fulton Sheen would say, nope, that's wrong. And I think once he's beatified, more people

00:25:38.620 will be quoting him, and it will give us leverage for orthodoxy in the church to say, here's what

00:25:44.980 blessed fulton sheen says about x y or z and i'll give you one story john henry that really makes

00:25:51.980 me happy the monsignor told a story in an interview where he was asked um when bishop

00:25:59.660 sheen dies uh bishop sheen said i want to go to heaven i'm going to ask three questions three

00:26:05.620 things and i joked with you off the air now i'm going to do it again because you know what john

00:26:10.680 Henry, you are a man in love with Jesus Christ. I'll say that right off the bat. I know that

00:26:17.140 because I've experienced it with you personally. And I could see you saying exactly what Fulton

00:26:22.680 Sheen said, and I'm going to say the same thing, I hope. So Sheen says, I will ask for three things.

00:26:27.820 First, to have a little rest because I didn't get much rest in my life. John Henry, you didn't get

00:26:33.660 much rest. I would say, you know, I don't think you had much rest. No, well, Sheen's line is I'd

00:26:39.620 rather burn out than rust out oh okay yeah and that's you yeah so here's you're getting a lot

00:26:46.100 of sheen isms here i think he says first i have a little rest because i didn't get much in this

00:26:50.380 life second is to say hello to the blessed mother whom i love dearly and i know you love our lady

00:26:56.480 dearly because i remember recording your conversion story so i know what our lady did for you brother

00:27:02.140 And then I have some questions for Aristotle and St. Thomas Aquinas.

00:27:08.460 John Henry, the third thing he said, oh my God, just like the little flower.

00:27:12.400 He said, third is to ask, when can I get back to work?

00:27:17.020 So from heaven, Fulton Sheen is going to be doing this work.

00:27:20.640 Now, we know the miracles already about Fulton Sheen for the beatification.

00:27:25.420 A couple of them were verified, and it's a done deal, right?

00:27:28.220 If you can run through those, if you have those off the top.

00:27:30.300 there was a little boy in peoria that was born and it was a home birth and he was born

00:27:37.260 without breathing so they rushed him to the hospital now it was 103 minutes they that he

00:27:45.780 didn't breathe for now normally yeah 103 minutes the chances of him if he even survives it's going

00:27:54.700 to have brain damage, right? Well, the little boy, mom and dad pray right there, asking Fulton Sheen's

00:28:02.820 intercession to take care of their son. So they get him to the hospital, and well, miracles are

00:28:10.980 miracles. He starts breathing, and the hospital says, I'm so sorry, but we've got him breathing,

00:28:18.380 but I'm sure there's going to be a lot of damage in his brain because of the flow of blood.

00:28:22.100 naturally that's what happens

00:28:24.140 so they go and do the tests

00:28:26.580 and by golly

00:28:28.140 John Henry no damage

00:28:30.160 zero and I've seen

00:28:32.060 the little boy he's like 14 years old

00:28:34.140 he serves

00:28:36.380 holy mass the traditional Latin mass

00:28:38.200 I might add did I say that

00:28:39.340 yes I did

00:28:41.060 and so his mom and dad

00:28:44.380 I've seen them I've interviewed them

00:28:46.360 wonderful story

00:28:48.080 that's one of the

00:28:48.920 they're going to be at the beatification obviously

00:28:51.620 and you know that's

00:28:54.020 one of the stories another story

00:28:56.120 I mean another story just recently

00:28:58.160 happened with a priest in Italy

00:28:59.840 that's going to be evaluated

00:29:02.000 for the beatification but there's five

00:29:04.060 like this and the priest

00:29:06.140 was dying of cancer

00:29:07.180 and I don't know the name of the cancer but

00:29:09.820 in Italy they said you know there's no hope

00:29:12.240 we don't have any cure for this

00:29:13.800 so he called on Fulton Sheen

00:29:16.200 to intercede for him if it be

00:29:18.000 God's will, holy will

00:29:20.200 And the situation came, and by golly, the priest was healed.

00:29:26.660 They did all the tests, and the cancer is completely gone.

00:29:30.920 So that went to Rome, and that's being studied as we speak.

00:29:34.820 I'll give you one more story.

00:29:36.320 He went to Lourdes, I think, 32 times in his lifetime.

00:29:39.940 So Our Lady of Lourdes was a, and Our Lady of Fatima, not as much,

00:29:42.980 but Our Lady of Lourdes was something really special to him.

00:29:45.860 situation came where there was a gentleman

00:29:48.780 who he tells

00:29:50.780 the story of Fulton Sheen about this man

00:29:52.700 was dying of cancer and

00:29:54.740 he was at the bar

00:29:56.320 and he was complaining to an Irish

00:29:58.240 bartender and

00:30:00.480 what's troubling you? He tells him

00:30:02.040 he says well you need to do what Bishop Sheen will say

00:30:04.860 what is that? Go to Our Lady

00:30:06.720 of Lords and ask Our Lady to heal you

00:30:08.560 if it be God's holy will

00:30:09.780 so the man went there

00:30:12.340 and by golly John Henry

00:30:14.560 he came back from Lourdes

00:30:16.620 went to the doctor's office

00:30:18.800 they took a test

00:30:20.420 no more cancer

00:30:23.280 so he went to the second doctor to verify

00:30:25.400 second doctor said the same thing

00:30:27.340 no cancer, the third one said no cancer

00:30:29.480 he says wow

00:30:30.160 so he goes back to the rectory

00:30:32.080 to tell the priest and says

00:30:34.020 sign me up I want to become a Catholic

00:30:36.100 and that man became a Catholic

00:30:38.360 with the intercession of Our Lady of Lourdes

00:30:41.140 now one story

00:30:43.100 that is going to touch your heart

00:30:45.000 because you have a zeal for evangelization

00:30:47.640 and for converts.

00:30:50.400 Bishop Sheen is going to Thailand.

00:30:52.220 Now, Monsignor tells the story,

00:30:54.440 Monsignor Hillary C. Franco,

00:30:57.200 he's dead now,

00:30:57.860 but when he told the story,

00:30:59.860 they were flying to Thailand

00:31:02.460 to open up an orphanage

00:31:04.480 in a country where leprosy was going on 1.00

00:31:08.520 and they wanted to bring in a crew of nuns

00:31:10.580 and a priest to open up a mission.

00:31:13.820 And so he flew out there, looked at the surrounding situation,

00:31:17.940 and said, okay, now we know what to do.

00:31:19.880 The propagation of the faith, are you ready for this?

00:31:22.200 It's going to bring in $5,500.

00:31:24.920 Now you remember, that was 1950.

00:31:27.380 That was a lot of money.

00:31:28.720 They're going to build a church.

00:31:30.040 They're going to do all that for $5,500.

00:31:31.720 You couldn't even come close today on that.

00:31:34.600 So what happens is he's on his way back from Thailand,

00:31:38.020 and he says in the story,

00:31:39.580 is a beautiful blonde stewardess

00:31:41.940 is giving them 0.94

00:31:43.660 whatever they do back in the 50s

00:31:45.740 some chewing gum or whatever their drink of water

00:31:47.680 and Fulton Sheen evangelizes

00:31:50.000 that woman and says

00:31:51.060 young lady, you have the apostolate

00:31:53.880 of beauty.

00:31:55.080 What is he doing?

00:31:57.000 And God would love to see you serve

00:31:59.800 the lepers that I just left 1.00

00:32:01.260 as a nun to serve the rest 1.00

00:32:03.980 of your life and you'll really

00:32:05.760 be fulfilled in this life.

00:32:07.720 And the beautiful stewardess is in her 20s

00:32:12.300 Beautiful girl 0.96

00:32:13.060 She says to Fulton Sheen

00:32:14.920 I'm not even Catholic

00:32:17.320 So Bishop Sheen pulls out his card

00:32:19.620 And says well I'm in New York

00:32:21.600 If you're ever in New York

00:32:22.680 And you want to know more about the Catholic faith

00:32:25.040 Come see me

00:32:26.300 So about a year later 0.90

00:32:29.060 This woman flies to New York

00:32:31.000 Unannounced 1.00

00:32:32.220 She goes to Bishop Sheen's office

00:32:34.300 Waiting for thinking Bishop Sheen's going to be there

00:32:36.460 monsignor's there he says well let me call him let me he'll be back in about an hour can you wait

00:32:42.280 yeah so fulton sheen meets the girl went with the monsignor and the girl says to bishop sheen do

00:32:50.220 you remember me and bishop sheen says that this is what monsignor said of course i do a beautiful

00:32:55.900 woman like you i remember you on the plane you know it's just what a what a what a great guy

00:33:01.720 You think I'm blind? I think he used that term. He says, I'm not blind to the Monsignor.

00:33:06.360 And so she takes instructions from Fulton Sheen, a life is worth living, the same ones that I

00:33:11.240 promote for 48 years. And she becomes a Catholic. About a year later, she comes back to Fulton

00:33:18.760 Sheen and says, Bishop Sheen, you talked years ago to me about the convent in Thailand that

00:33:25.540 works with leprosy. Can I find out more about those sisters? I think God's calling me to become

00:33:30.880 a nun. This is how powerful this man never, that's why I don't lose opportunities. I tell

00:33:36.560 everybody at the park, wherever I'm at, have you ever thought about becoming a Catholic?

00:33:40.640 We have the fullness of the faith. What? That's kind of bold. Well, Bishop Sheen was bold. Why

00:33:44.940 can't we be bold, John Henry? So the woman goes to the convent and spends the rest of her life 1.00

00:33:50.680 serving that leprosy colony that Fulton Sheen started in 1950. I can go on, but you see why I

00:33:58.280 say we need someone like that today in our church? Because as Fulton Sheen says, our fires have gone

00:34:03.620 out, John Henry. We're more important of taking bottles and recycling bottles than teaching people

00:34:10.780 about the salvation of their souls. We've got to stop that now. For U.S. residents, creating a will

00:34:17.540 has never been easier. Thanks to My Legacy Will, an online platform free of charge, you can now

00:34:23.620 create your own will and choose to include life site news in it specify where your funeral will

00:34:29.180 take place the number of masses to be offered for your soul and how your estate would be distributed

00:34:34.160 we would be deeply grateful if you remembered life site news in your will

00:34:38.620 visit mylegacywill.com slash life site news thank you for your support and may god bless you

00:34:45.900 one more question for you terry because we haven't talked about it yet um and that is with regard to

00:34:51.640 the traditional Latin Mass. What happened there? He lived through that era. What was his take?

00:34:57.900 How did he deal with it? How did he suggest his priests would deal with it? How did that go on?

00:35:02.580 I think, now this is my take, because as you know, John Henry, you've seen the videos that

00:35:08.320 Keep the Faith put out on the traditional Latin Mass, where Bishop Sheen does the commentary,

00:35:13.940 and then my book here, right here, this is the Mass, okay, 1958, goes through all the steps of

00:35:22.840 the Mass. I would say this, he accepted the Vatican II Council's document on the liturgy,

00:35:30.920 but I would say that, like many other Orthodox guys after the Council, they would say it was

00:35:38.140 hijacked in 1965 if you look at the document it states the church the priest turns around and says

00:35:46.300 you know uh lord be with you or in latin too and so that implies that he's at orientum he's not

00:35:52.700 facing the people so there's so many things of the document but what was implemented was totally

00:35:59.260 different now i i don't know for a fact but i interviewed abbott boniface lukey one of the

00:36:07.180 one of the founders of Vatican II, on that liturgy. He called Bunini a Freemason. He

00:36:16.460 worked with him for years. I knew all that, but Fulton Sheen, I believe, saw the new Mass as it

00:36:23.660 was implemented. Now, this is my understanding of what he's written on the Mass, even after the

00:36:28.980 Second Vatican Council. He used terms that the modern church would not use. So, I don't think

00:36:34.880 he ever changed his views about the Mass. I think he did say the Novus Ordo Mass. I think he sees

00:36:42.580 the implementation of Vatican II as part of modernism, in my opinion. And I think that

00:36:52.120 when he talks about the de-Eucharization and that, you know, on sin, all of this went on

00:36:58.860 right after the Council of John Henry. Now, he saw it in the 20s because he went to school

00:37:04.780 at Louvain and graduated there, and he saw the modernism picking up its head, but it was in the

00:37:13.240 institutions. And this is why he said, we got to go to Rome and alert the Holy Father, alert the

00:37:20.600 congregation of the faith, that this is going to be a mess. We need to stop it now, or it's going 0.90

00:37:25.680 to be chaos in the church. He used those words and letters to Rome. Now, when he retired, Pope Paul

00:37:32.680 the sixth you probably know this offered him a job in a very big uh anything he wanted in rome

00:37:39.760 told paul the sixth whatever you want i can put you in any position you want and what was sheen's

00:37:45.580 response in this letter i'll just paraphrase he says i want to work with people he's not an

00:37:51.120 administrator nah some guys are administrators some guys are evangelists keep him as an evangelist

00:37:57.640 You can see what happened as a bishop in New York, upstate New York, where the people rejected him on his orthodoxy.

00:38:06.600 And so I believe he made the right choice because in the later years, he was constantly trying to get people to get back to the daily holy hour.

00:38:15.280 Not just priests, you and me, lay people.

00:38:18.380 And I believe that the renewal of the church will come through the Eucharist and through the hands of Our Lady.

00:38:25.860 That's what I think Bishop Sheen would say based on everything I've read.

00:38:28.980 He has one famous quote we haven't talked about, and it's this.

00:38:31.680 Oh, good.

00:38:32.520 Who's going to save our church?

00:38:34.660 He says, not our bishops, not our priests and religious.

00:38:38.840 It's up to you, the people.

00:38:41.180 You have the minds, the eyes, the ears to save the church.

00:38:44.540 Your mission is to see that your priests act like priests, your bishop like bishops, and your religious act like religious.

00:38:51.080 Terry, I would have to say that's like a prophecy about you.

00:38:53.540 why would Sheen have said that being a bishop himself? And yet here he is speaking. That must

00:39:00.300 have been pretty offensive to the bishops and the priests, they give their whole lives. And yet he's

00:39:05.140 looking to the laity? What's that? Fulton Sheen wasn't well liked by his brother bishops. I'll

00:39:09.460 just be quite frank. They thought he was like a movie star and he had too much. The problem in

00:39:14.280 our church still has is our pride. And we don't like someone being on TV because look, why is he

00:39:20.940 on and why am I not it's just pride that comes out it's ugly head but when Fulton Sheen said that

00:39:26.220 I've quoted it I quoted it to the LA Times maybe 30 years ago and because I was at a family

00:39:32.760 conference with about 10,000 people in in Anaheim Stadium Anaheim Convention Center by Disneyland

00:39:39.180 and they took it and put it on their religion on the front page of the religion department

00:39:44.680 and I'm like why is that so he says well young man I think I was like 48 years old or 45 years

00:39:50.340 old, and they said, and so I explained to him, I said, because the laity have a role to sanctify

00:39:58.180 that temporal order. That's what we're called to do. And by teaching people the faith, when our

00:40:03.340 bishops, and I said this, and I think I got some people upset, because I said, the bishops aren't

00:40:09.100 doing it. They're not doing their job. And I've been saying that for decades. Our bishops, Joseph

00:40:15.300 Strickland, who's coming to us from Peoria and to you for LifeSite News, we're going to have

00:40:20.300 him out the day after you have him for a big banquet. But after that, he comes to Peoria with

00:40:25.460 us, and people want to go with him. We'll meet you in St. Louis. Just go to vmpr.org. But one

00:40:31.180 of the things I will say is that that quote got me in a lot of trouble, because I would call out

00:40:36.640 bishops and say what Bishop Strickland said when I had the Bishop Strickland show. Bishops are

00:40:42.260 supposed to agree to something when they were ordained as a bishop, and that says that they

00:40:47.980 will promote the deposit of faith. Just like you made a promise to your wife on the altar,

00:40:53.940 keep it, John Henry. Terry, you did the same thing. I call bishops, when they don't promote

00:40:59.080 the deposit of faith, to keep that, because they're not. And so, the laity has to step in.

00:41:05.960 And that's why I think, as so many lay apostles, I remember Father John Harden, I knew him quite

00:41:10.720 well, because I remember I've been doing this since the late 70s. And he told me personally,

00:41:15.720 And he had loved Fulton Sheen, and he also was very much disliked by his Jesuits,

00:41:23.200 because he was a real Jesuit, like Father Vincent Michelli.

00:41:26.260 So here's what Father Hardin said to me personally in San Diego at a homeschooling conference back in the 80s.

00:41:32.180 Terry, I can tell you, it's the zeal of the lay people like you and others that are going to bring the church back.

00:41:38.160 It's not going to be the priests and the bishops.

00:41:40.900 And I said, man, that sounds like Fulton Sheen.

00:41:42.700 So all the guys that I know who are solidly Catholic, Monsignor George Kelly and his battle for the American church, said the same thing.

00:41:51.120 So that's why I say people support LifeSite News, support organizations that are teaching people what I call the perennial teachings of the church.

00:42:00.840 It's not John Henry's personal opinion.

00:42:03.020 Guess what, John Henry?

00:42:04.340 I don't care about your personal opinion.

00:42:06.240 I don't care about Terry Barber's personal opinion.

00:42:08.800 I want to know what Jesus Christ taught and nothing more.

00:42:12.020 Since you sort of let the cat out of the bag, let me just say that, yes, indeed, at the beatification of Fulton Sheen, the canonization, I'm sure will come soon, but at the beatification on September the 24th in St. Louis, Missouri, there will be a beautiful, obviously, the beatification mass.

00:42:31.440 It'll be held in the stadium there, but we're holding a reception right after that, a celebration

00:42:38.840 dinner, if you will, where Terry Barbell and Bishop Strickland, and there's going to be

00:42:45.640 all sorts of, Peter Howard's going to be there too, another Sheen expert, and it's going

00:42:50.400 to be lots of fun.

00:42:51.240 So if you want to come join us there, please contact us at LifeSite News.

00:42:55.780 Terry will actually take you back right after that to Peoria, where the celebrations of

00:43:00.720 Sheen. We'll go on and on. And we're going to have Bishop Strickland join us for Mass and

00:43:04.960 confession. Got a couple other priests that are going to be doing that. John Henry, I will just

00:43:09.060 say this. I say it full Sheen ahead every day on the radio. And people say, I have friends now,

00:43:14.680 they're putting stickers together. Do you mind us using that phrase? I said,

00:43:18.620 knock your socks off. Go for it. Because people are starting to use this term. And I'm at an

00:43:25.040 airport and somebody's picking me up and they go full sheet ahead and I say amen and now we can

00:43:31.660 really see that today with the beatification coming up in September and I just want to say

00:43:37.200 this about LifeSite News you guys have been promoting what I call the perennial teachings

00:43:44.520 of the church that's why I go to your source every day when I do radio shows the articles that you

00:43:49.840 have, the information, what the church has taught. Not only do you talk about articles and, you know,

00:43:57.660 giving people the news about it, but you show what's most important. What does the church

00:44:03.140 actually teach on that topic? I think that's critical, and I want to publicly thank you

00:44:07.920 for not leaving that out, because people need to know not just this is going on, but what really

00:44:14.280 should be being taught, and I think that that's part of the teaching responsibility of us lay

00:44:19.020 people. Amen to that. Terry Barber, so good to be with you. Thank you for being with us

00:44:23.060 and promoting Sheen. And we will see you in person once again in September at the beatification of

00:44:30.900 Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. God bless you, my friend. God bless you too, brother. Take care. And God

00:44:34.620 bless all of you. And we'll see you next time. Hi, I'm Liz Yor. I'm really urging all the audience

00:44:44.100 to continue to follow life site news for all information news about life for a great perspective

00:44:52.900 on all the breaking news in the world thank you for watching and continue to watch and follow

00:45:00.020 LifeSite News.

The John-Henry Westen Show - May 08, 2026

Tabernacle Off to the Side？ Archbishop Sheen Would Have NONE of It

Episode Stats

People

Summary

Transcript