The John-Henry Westen Show - September 23, 2026


The Miracle That Paved the Way for Fulton Sheen’s Beatification

Hosted by
John-Henry Westen
Mentioned
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen John Henry Weston James Fulton Ingstrom Delia Sheen Al Smith John Paul II Cardinal McGuigan Andrew Apostoli Bonnie Ingstrom Monsignor Gray Marian Shrine Mother Teresa Terry Barber Daniel Jenke Carla Akutis Blessed Lord St. John Beatitudes Pharisees Apostle and 4 more
Billions of Years or 6,000？ The Great Debate on Creation vs Genesis

Episode Stats


Length

37 minutes

Words per minute

166.82

Word count

6,258

Sentence count

364

Harmful content

Hate speech

5

sentences flagged


Transcript

Transcript generated with Whisper (turbo).
Hate speech classifications generated with facebook/roberta-hate-speech-dynabench-r4-target .
Hosts, guests, and mentioned names generated with spaCy (en_core_web_sm), reconciled against Wikidata.
00:00:00.000 She went into labor and gave birth, and the child had no signs of life.
00:00:04.520 The Ingstrom family had a devotion to Fulton Sheen, and so they just kept praying to Fulton Sheen.
00:00:09.220 And the doctor was about to come in and write a certificate of death.
00:00:12.640 All of a sudden, the child came back to life.
00:00:14.300 And what was beautiful was not just the fact that the child came back to life after 61 minutes,
00:00:19.720 but the child had no brain damage and is now a 15-year-old strapping young teenager
00:00:26.880 who will process the relics of Fulton Sheen at the beatification ceremony.
00:00:34.200 Hey, my friends, as we are just about to celebrate the beatification of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen,
00:00:43.220 I wanted to bring you one of the two guys who really has promoted Sheen like nobody else. You
00:00:49.820 remember my friend Terry Barber, who has been on the show many times before and worked very closely
00:00:56.080 with Bishop Strickland. He was one of those foot soldiers. And the other one was Al Smith,
00:01:00.740 known as Al the Gas Man, very often to people in his local town, has been an amazing purveyor
00:01:08.380 of the faith. He has gone around in all sorts of different countries to bring the message
00:01:14.220 of Fulton J. Sheen and also of the Holy Face devotion and many other things. I want to speak
00:01:20.680 to him today about the in-depth Sheen and what we need to do to follow his example in the future.
00:01:27.560 Al, thank you so much for joining us. Hi, John Henry. It's great to be here. And
00:01:31.060 thank you for your compliments. Not that I'm trying to get recognized for the work we've done,
00:01:37.440 but I always say saints pick us. And I believe in my heart of heart that Fulton Sheen picked me
00:01:43.520 a number of years ago and said, you know what? The blessed Lord, our blessed Lord used fishermen,
00:01:49.300 tax collectors, tent makers to do his bidding. I'm going to choose a pipe fitter plumber from Canada
00:01:56.400 to share Fulton Sheen. So our Lord has a sense of humor. He really does.
00:02:02.120 Indeed he does. Let's begin as we always do with the sign of the cross. In the name of the Father
00:02:06.480 and of the Son and of the Holy Ghost. Amen. What's the story of you and Sheen? How did this come to
00:02:12.440 be in the first place? I was 48 years old. I had never heard of Fulton Sheen. I had read one of
00:02:19.060 his books, never saw a video clip of him. I was just minding my own business. I'm a cradle Catholic,
00:02:26.240 come from a small Catholic family of 12 children, so a very animated household. And of course,
00:02:33.620 we practiced the faith. We were all daily communicants. Mother brought as many as she
00:02:39.740 could to Mass every morning. My dad went to Mass every morning. And so we just lived a beautiful
00:02:44.880 Catholic life. And I'm married to my good wife, Isabel, for 41 years now. And again, we were just
00:02:51.640 dropping our daughter off to a small Catholic college in Berries Bay, Ontario, called Our Lady's
00:02:57.980 Seat of Wisdom College. And I was getting my daughter settled to the dormitory, wanted to be
00:03:03.560 the good dad, protective custody, make sure, you know, that she had good friends, she was surrounded
00:03:09.680 by good people. And my wife, Isabel, was in the library of the school, looking around, and she
00:03:15.580 saw a box of books that said free books. And of course, when you see free books, she grabbed a
00:03:21.620 couple. And so I'm getting in the car with her, and we're getting ready for the five-hour drive
00:03:26.980 back home. And I said, what did you get, honey? And she says, I got these free books. I got this
00:03:32.560 one book from Fulton Sheen. I go, who's Fulton Sheen? She goes, you don't know who Fulton Sheen
00:03:38.460 is? I said, no, never heard of him. She goes, let me read to you some of his stuff. I said, okay,
00:03:44.000 we got five hours. I'm all ears. Hey, my friends. I just heard about a great Catholic mobile phone
00:03:49.740 company that gives 100% of its profits to traditional Catholic religious orders,
00:03:55.640 monasteries, and Catholic media. And no, I'm not joking. They support traditional Catholic priests
00:04:02.120 and religious. Do you even know that every time you make a call, send a text, or use
00:04:07.300 mobile data, your provider earns revenue. Have you ever thought about where that money goes?
00:04:14.380 Many companies support causes that conflict with traditional Catholic values, but now there's a
00:04:21.080 traditional Catholic alternative. It's called iCatholic Mobile. With iCatholic Mobile, you'll
00:04:27.760 get dependable nationwide 5G talk, text, and data service on America's largest network. You'll get
00:04:35.340 also personalized customer support, and you can keep your current phone number. So make the switch
00:04:40.700 today. Call 802-988-6588 or visit icatholicmobile.com. May God bless you. Well, she opened up the book
00:04:51.240 Peace of Soul, Fulton Sheen's 1949 bestseller, New York Times bestselling book, and she read to me
00:04:59.640 the first line, she had said, unless souls are saved, nothing is saved. And when I heard those
00:05:06.320 lines, I said, who speaks like that anymore? Who wants to save a soul? And I thought, this is
00:05:13.200 beautiful. It reminded me when I was in high school, I was involved with, again, many youth
00:05:20.500 groups, mostly my friends who were Baptist and evangelical, and they were always going to
00:05:25.980 toronto to hand out bible tracts and to try to save souls and i love their zeal and so i thought
00:05:33.100 we need this zeal in the catholic faith we need someone to come forward to say hey do you want to
00:05:38.480 save some souls including our own let's do this and so i was inspired to say i want to know more
00:05:44.180 about fulton sheen came home and said to my wife could i borrow that book and she said no no no
00:05:49.180 you get your own sheen book and i said okay dear and i went on the internet and i saw that he wrote
00:05:55.300 66 books. I said, wow, there's a lot to choose from here. And there was one title that caught
00:06:01.260 my eye, and it was Victory Over Vice, Sheen's 1939 Lenten series, where he took the seven last
00:06:09.060 words that our blessed Lord spoke from the cross as the remedy for the seven deadly sins.
00:06:14.600 And I have to admit, I have a sin problem. And again, a lot of us have to realize we do have a
00:06:20.220 sin problem. And I thought, I'll take this to heart. And I read Fulton Sheen, and it was like
00:06:25.720 I met the parish priest I wish I had, the priest that understood me, met me where I was at,
00:06:33.380 helped me with this sin problem I had. And I still have today, but it's decreased, you know.
00:06:39.440 But it's this idea that I needed good counsel and someone who could interpret the scriptures
00:06:45.200 and guide me, and Fulton Sheen was that priest.
00:06:49.240 And so I read Victory Over Vice, and then I picked up another book,
00:06:52.940 The Seven Virtues, picked up another book, Calvary and the Mass,
00:06:57.500 The Cross and the Beatitudes, and I just kept going through all of his books.
00:07:01.740 And after two years, I had read 30 of his books, and I thought,
00:07:05.200 I love what he's doing. He's so easy to read.
00:07:08.840 He takes St. Thomas Aquinas and puts it at a level or a frequency
00:07:13.500 that the common man can understand.
00:07:16.760 And I started to see why 30 million people
00:07:19.420 tuned into his television show every week.
00:07:22.540 Why people were just saying,
00:07:24.240 he's providing me the answers that I need.
00:07:27.320 I'm confused.
00:07:28.500 I need help.
00:07:29.760 And Fulton Sheen was providing that help.
00:07:32.100 And so I said to myself,
00:07:33.460 this is too good to hold it and just keep it.
00:07:36.520 I need to share this.
00:07:38.220 And I've been blessed that I've been doing community radio
00:07:41.200 in my sleepy little village.
00:07:42.660 And I go into the radio station every Sunday and share the Holy Rosary, you know, lives of the saints.
00:07:50.820 We do all that.
00:07:52.460 And I said to the station manager, could I, you know, replay some old Fulton Sheen tapes to see, you know, what people would think?
00:08:01.700 And the radio station said, sure, let's do this.
00:08:03.920 And so it was a Monday evening, February 12th, 2012, 60 years to the day that Fulton Sheen went on television.
00:08:11.440 um in the 1950s there was a god incidence there you know it wasn't a coincidence but yeah the
00:08:18.740 same day and i put two fulton sheen tapes into the the machines at the radio station and i played
00:08:25.440 fulton sheen's talk on angels and his talk on the catechism the first lesson um where we say you
00:08:32.460 know do we say good morning god or do we say good god morning you know like what's your philosophy
00:08:39.020 of life you know and hopefully we're saying good morning god well the phone lines lit up at the
00:08:44.160 station i never get phone calls at the radio station but i had four calls right away and
00:08:50.260 people saying fulton sheen is he coming back to town he was at the kitchener memorial auditorium
00:08:56.620 1974 i went there i loved it is he coming back and i said i know he's been he died in 1979
00:09:05.220 And these were non-Catholics calling in.
00:09:08.020 This is a public radio station. 1.00
00:09:10.120 And I thought, boy, there's something very special here.
00:09:12.940 And so I realized I need to share Sheen's audio recordings.
00:09:17.560 But then one day I was just praying my holy hour in my local parish,
00:09:22.540 and I just had this kind of, I just want to say, inspiration to say,
00:09:28.420 you know what, the seminarians need this.
00:09:30.880 They really do.
00:09:31.580 And so I phoned up my local seminary, and I said, could I come and bring Fulton Sheen to the seminarians?
00:09:37.640 And he said, absolutely.
00:09:39.680 And so I went to my local seminary, gave a short presentation to about 50 seminarians, and they just embraced Fulton Sheen.
00:09:48.460 The formators at the seminary embraced him.
00:09:51.940 And the next thing you know, I was receiving phone calls to come and present at the seminaries in Edmonton, Alberta,
00:09:58.780 Mission, British Columbia, Montreal, Quebec, Toronto, Canada.
00:10:03.420 And I went across Canada just gifting seminarians Fulton Sheen's writings, just saying to them, you need Sheen.
00:10:11.600 And I think the young seminarians are looking for inspiration.
00:10:15.620 They're looking for someone that can help them in this very difficult journey, this vocation that they're called to.
00:10:23.940 And Fulton Sheen, of course, says you're going to become priest and victim.
00:10:27.560 So all of this.
00:10:28.900 So I was just minding my own business as Al the Gas Man, but still doing this work on the radio, visiting with seminarians.
00:10:36.820 And the next thing you know, Peoria, Illinois, reached out to me, the bishop there, and again just said, come join us.
00:10:46.400 It was Bishop Daniel Jenke.
00:10:48.440 He said, come join our board of directors.
00:10:50.180 We want your enthusiasm.
00:10:52.400 And there I met Father Andrew Apostoli.
00:10:54.420 God rest his soul.
00:10:55.620 And he said to me, Alan, I want you to republish all of Sheen's lost works, the books that haven't been republished in 70, 80 years.
00:11:05.760 I'll make sure his pen doesn't evaporate.
00:11:08.760 You've got him on the radio saying, thank you, beautiful, keep doing that.
00:11:13.180 And you've gone to the seminaries to share Sheen with the seminarians to keep doing that.
00:11:17.260 But get his books out in distribution.
00:11:20.440 And that's what I've been able to do.
00:11:21.800 I went to Sophia Institute Press and I said, I have this idea of these anthologies where we could take a collection of Sheen's works on five of his main themes and give them to the people so they would enjoy them.
00:11:37.080 And so we developed The Cries of Jesus from the Cross, which is a best-selling anthology.
00:11:42.100 It's in his 12th printing now.
00:11:44.060 And it's all of Sheen's writings on the seven last words.
00:11:47.100 I mean, he did a great, magnificent work in that.
00:11:50.580 But, you know, I think it was 58 consecutive years he gave the Good Friday addresses and had thousands lined the streets and listened on loudspeakers to his talks.
00:12:00.520 We published that book.
00:12:02.680 We took his writings on prayer and called that Lord Teach Us to Pray, Calvary and the Mass, the Holy Hour, all of his writings on prayer.
00:12:11.080 And we did the same with the sacraments.
00:12:12.720 We put a book together of Three to Get Married, and these are the sacraments.
00:12:16.720 and of course his writings on God's love
00:12:19.060 and his writings during the Second World War
00:12:21.660 and we call that book War and Peace, an anthology
00:12:25.000 because Fulton Sheen's name is Irish background
00:12:28.820 and people who know the Gaelic language
00:12:31.200 know that when you translate his name
00:12:33.700 Fulton means war and Sheen means peace
00:12:37.380 and so I think he was named to bring about war and peace
00:12:42.060 so these five anthologies did very well
00:12:46.200 and continue to do well, thanks to Sophia Institute Press.
00:12:49.620 And then they asked me to write two books
00:12:51.780 in just time for Sheen's Beatification.
00:12:56.420 And so I've done that now in the book,
00:12:58.340 The Soul of the Disciple and America's Apostle.
00:13:01.140 And again, they're doing very well, these two books.
00:13:03.800 But again, a plumber from Canada,
00:13:07.180 just minding his own business,
00:13:09.180 dropping his daughter off to a Catholic college.
00:13:12.220 And wow, voila, this has all happened.
00:13:15.520 The saints choose us. I think that is very true in my own life, too. Just a few little things that indicate, oh, I guess I'm chosen by you. Now, I sometimes have to still figure out what's up. What am I supposed to do with you? I don't know yet. I know something's going on.
00:13:33.620 Take us a little bit deeper into Sheen. What particularly strikes you? Soul of the Apostle.
00:13:40.580 That's one thing that takes us deeper. I'm just starting into that one myself. But the focus
00:13:45.980 there is the meditation on Christ. A lot of people have issues with that because they don't really
00:13:52.260 understand meditation. They don't get how to. They all think, oh, that's for people who are
00:13:58.860 kind of into that. I say my rose or I say my prayers. I just, I don't know how to get there.
00:14:04.460 What have you found from Sheen that helps them?
00:14:06.480 You know, I just read his life story and I connect the dots.
00:14:11.240 So he grows up on a farm, you know, in like a farming family.
00:14:17.460 And of course, mom and dad moved the family into the city so they learned the faith.
00:14:23.520 And of course, Newt and Delia Sheen, Fulton Sheen's parents, you know, prayed the family rosary every night.
00:14:30.320 They took the family to mass every Sunday.
00:14:32.880 and instilled this love of Jesus in the family.
00:14:37.180 And, of course, Delia Sheen took the little Fulton Sheen, four days old,
00:14:42.980 on the day of his baptism, brought the baby and placed him
00:14:46.840 in front of the statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary.
00:14:49.700 And Delia Sheen said, I give you my son.
00:14:52.760 I consecrate him to your care.
00:14:54.920 Dear mother, please protect him, guide him, help him to fall in love with Jesus.
00:15:00.600 And so it's that love of the Mother just to give Fulton Sheen to Our Lady.
00:15:06.240 And of course, he carried that Marian devotion with him his whole life.
00:15:09.820 On his First Holy Communion, he rededicated his life to her.
00:15:13.880 Of course, when he was ordained a priest, he said, of course, a beautiful promise that he would make a daily holy hour
00:15:20.280 and that every Saturday he would offer Mass in honor of the Blessed Virgin Mary to protect his priesthood.
00:15:26.480 And when he became a bishop, his coat of arms, he chose the words,
00:15:33.660 that I may come to Jesus through the mother.
00:15:37.760 So it's this beautiful formation that Fulton Sheen received from his parents.
00:15:43.460 And, of course, going to a parochial school, he studied well and, of course, was brilliant.
00:15:50.320 But that was hard work, and his parents taught him that.
00:15:53.620 And I think when Fulton Sheen, of course, knew he had an interior call to the priesthood, of course, he followed that call, that vocation.
00:16:01.920 And yet he went to study at the local university and then, of course, went to the Catholic University of America and then furthered his studies in Europe at Levain and other, of course, Rome.
00:16:15.460 And yet, you know, again, always just saying, I want to be a priest.
00:16:19.940 I want to serve.
00:16:21.720 And, you know, when he received his superdoctorate from Levain University, again, the aggregate degree, everybody thought he would be teaching right away.
00:16:32.160 But his bishop called him back to Peoria to serve in a poor parish.
00:16:37.160 And he did that for nine months.
00:16:39.260 I think only 20% of his parishioners spoke English.
00:16:42.540 It was a very difficult assignment.
00:16:44.540 But Fulton Sheen knew he wanted to be a priest, and a priest is called to serve.
00:16:49.780 and he had that beautiful mindset
00:16:51.700 that he's both priest and victim
00:16:53.680 and he just
00:16:56.140 took it and said
00:16:58.060 this is what God's calling me to
00:16:59.480 and I think that's what was so beautiful
00:17:01.920 but the one thing I found about
00:17:03.980 Fulton Sheen that people are now starting
00:17:05.840 to pay attention to is his
00:17:07.800 Carmelite connection
00:17:09.020 he writes about visiting
00:17:11.820 with the Carmelites when he was
00:17:13.820 a seminarian and he would visit
00:17:15.780 them and he was so attracted to
00:17:17.740 their rule of life
00:17:18.880 their spirituality, their penances. Again, he just said, this is beautiful. And he asked them
00:17:26.880 to pray for him. And he would, of course, pray for them. And he kept a lifelong correspondence
00:17:32.800 with many of these beautiful Carmelite nuns and Carmelite priests. And, you know, he went through
00:17:39.380 his life as a diocesan priest. And of course, in 1948, he was teaching at the Catholic University
00:17:46.220 of America. And he becomes a third-order Carmelite. And I thought, why would Fulton Sheen 0.51
00:17:53.120 become a third-order Carmelite 30 years into his priesthood? And the Carmelites told me, 0.79
00:17:59.100 they said, it's because Fulton Sheen was attracted to Carmelite spirituality,
00:18:04.320 contemplation, meditation. And of course, then I thought Fulton Sheen studied the great Carmelites
00:18:10.200 At Levain, he studied St. John of the Cross, St. Teresa of Avila.
00:18:14.920 He had read the writings of Sister Marie de Saint-Pierre, to whom the Holy Face devotion was given.
00:18:21.720 Of course, St. Therese of the Child Jesus and the Holy Face.
00:18:26.560 And yet when you read Fulton Sheen's writings, you see he mentions face often.
00:18:32.400 That when we go to our Eucharistic Holy Hours and we look upon the Lord, we encounter him face to face.
00:18:39.440 And so he was really talking about FaceTime before FaceTime was made popular with iPhones, right?
00:18:47.120 But it's this Carmelite spirituality, this Carmelite formation.
00:18:51.180 And of course, 1948 is the year he released his book, Communism and the Conscience of the West.
00:18:57.300 I believe wholeheartedly that he was asking the Carmelites to join him in his mission of spiritual warfare,
00:19:05.300 going against the communist and of course the holy face devotion speaks to that to defeat of
00:19:11.680 communism but it's this idea of fulton sheen was always battling you know you think of elijah and
00:19:17.560 you think of course the battles and you know the the demons of ball and like the i think it was
00:19:23.360 hundreds right yeah reading our scriptures and yet fulton sheen went after every ism he defeated
00:19:29.600 communism marxism totalitarianism uh you know like the isms are like we just see ism his and
00:19:38.040 ism and he would go after every one of them and defeat them because again he just trusted in god
00:19:43.280 the power of of god's truth and of course that's what he provided he converted belladon he converted
00:19:50.760 boudins he converted all of these communists and many of the hollywood movie stars so he had
00:19:56.820 something there, but I believe it was his Carmelite connection, his love for Carmel.
00:20:02.640 And of course, in his retirement years, he gave many retreats on St. Therese of the child Jesus
00:20:07.880 and the Holy Face, her little way. And again, you just see that in his retirement, he's saying,
00:20:15.220 I want to continue to give this message. He preached the Holy Hour, of course, to priests
00:20:20.120 and to all who would listen, but he really had a soft spot in his heart for St. Therese.
00:20:26.320 And I think now as you start to read him and see him, you go, yeah, Fulton Sheen is a Carmelite at heart.
00:20:36.680 And where the truth is, there is God.
00:20:39.540 The world is basically going the way of the church and vice versa.
00:20:45.260 Everyone who's being named a bishop is being named because he's a nice guy.
00:20:51.040 Does he have the Catholic faith? Well, that's not really important. He's nice.
00:20:54.480 I started studying the early church, and I realized, wow, the church was all centered around the Eucharist.
00:21:02.020 God has sent again the Blessed Virgin Mary to ask us through an imploring and loving voice to convert while there is still time.
00:21:11.120 St. Peter the Apostle on the first Pentecost Sunday to tell these pious Jews who came to Jerusalem in pilgrimage that they need to come into the church and be baptized.
00:21:21.160 And the faithful were crying out, blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.
00:21:26.240 Peace in heaven and glory in the highest.
00:21:28.580 So the Pharisees complained, tell him to shut up.
00:21:31.700 And Jesus said in reply, I tell you, if they keep silent, the stones will cry out.
00:21:37.000 In other words, the truth will never be silenced.
00:21:39.940 And my friends, we're inviting you to Fatima, Portugal,
00:21:42.520 the greatest place of prophecy since Christ himself walked the earth.
00:21:46.140 Beginning November 11th, there will be a once in a lifetime pilgrimage
00:21:50.080 that combines some of the best Catholic prophecy speakers
00:21:53.840 with a chance to walk in the footsteps of the shepherd children
00:21:57.800 in the land that Our Lady graced over a hundred years ago.
00:22:01.800 Her messages are being fulfilled in our time,
00:22:04.740 so we hope you will join us in responding to her call
00:22:07.920 at this most important Marian Shrine.
00:22:11.920 Seats are limited, so please book right now.
00:22:14.680 he's sort of criticized from all sides um a lot of the people who see the delay in his uh
00:22:28.000 beatification um are startled that he's even getting beatified at this time in the church at
00:22:33.260 all because he said some very controversial things about the ape of the church uh that was forthcoming
00:22:40.180 warning that there would be a church set up that would be false. He talked about who's going to
00:22:46.020 save the church, and it wouldn't be the bishops or the priests or the religious. It would be the
00:22:49.940 laity who will make the priests or the bishops act like bishops, and they have the ears and the
00:22:57.260 eyes and so on, but make the bishops act like bishops, priests act like priests, and religious
00:23:01.220 act like religious. So that's stunning that he would say those things, and that's going to ruffle
00:23:08.120 quite a few feathers on the other end the now letter that's being spread around about his
00:23:15.080 um suggesting that the latin or the the sspx is is not um is not to be gone to or whatever
00:23:22.800 um very controversial from both ends of the spectrum if you will people are people and
00:23:28.560 there's movements and you know i've been serving on the board of directors of the sheen foundation
00:23:33.760 since 2013 and so i've been a part of just witnessing what i call a little bit of a
00:23:40.560 roller coaster ride momentum going towards sheen's beatification and then a pause and then a restart
00:23:47.640 and then a pause and a restart then a pause so there's been a number of pauses on sheen's
00:23:53.380 beatification some over his physical remains some over just again looking into you know possible
00:24:03.140 you know, mishandlings of cases in Rochester.
00:24:06.800 So there's always this activity within the Church.
00:24:10.060 And I applaud the Church for its prudence many times.
00:24:14.740 And I don't think we're as prudent as we should be.
00:24:18.000 But I always say to people, you know, we were spoiled with St. John Paul II.
00:24:23.180 We were spoiled with Mother Teresa.
00:24:25.360 We're spoiled with Carla Akutis.
00:24:27.760 And that these canonizations have happened very quickly.
00:24:32.400 And yet, when I look at the history of the Church,
00:24:34.820 most beatifications and canonizations take 50, 100 years,
00:24:40.280 sometimes hundreds of years.
00:24:42.160 And yet, we always have to look and say,
00:24:44.360 is this candidate for sainthood worthy of the title
00:24:49.920 because they led a life of heroic virtue?
00:24:53.580 And I think that's what's shining with Sheen,
00:24:56.360 is that his life of heroic virtue,
00:24:59.680 Yes, there may be tensions between bishops over physical remains.
00:25:04.320 There may be tensions about bishops, about the optics.
00:25:08.060 But still, at the end of the day, it's about what Fulton Sheen wrote and what he said and how he lived his life.
00:25:14.940 And many people will say he never really thought of himself.
00:25:18.920 He was always thinking of others.
00:25:21.040 And that's why, of course, we like to call him almost one day Saint Sheen.
00:25:25.520 But he was human, yes, and he had his flaws.
00:25:29.020 but still it was about bringing souls to jesus christ every day he woke up he was always saying
00:25:35.740 how can i tend to souls how can i bring souls to jesus and i think and i hope and i pray that this
00:25:41.820 is what we will focus on as the church approaches that beautiful day in september where we'll call
00:25:48.060 him blessed sheen and you know there are a number of miracles that have happened over the years
00:25:54.240 through Fulton Sheen's intercession, and I was talking to Monsignor Gray,
00:25:59.980 and he said they have five miracles that they could present to the Vatican
00:26:05.640 to see, of course, him being declared St. Sheen with the second miracle.
00:26:12.800 And so the healings and the reports come into the diocesan office on a regular basis,
00:26:18.380 and so they're being investigated and, of course, will be presented.
00:26:22.080 as we presented the first miracle of the young James Fulton Ingstrom,
00:26:27.140 who was literally dead for 61 minutes and came back to life
00:26:31.860 through the intercession of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen,
00:26:35.240 and of course the healing power of our Blessed Lord.
00:26:37.960 Tell us a little bit more about that one.
00:26:39.680 The year was 2010.
00:26:42.420 Travis and Bonnie Ingstrom, a beautiful couple.
00:26:46.560 Again, they decided to have a home birth,
00:26:49.800 And that seems to be popular, more popular nowadays.
00:26:55.680 And yet she went into labor and gave birth, and the child had no signs of life.
00:27:02.520 The umbilical cord had got squeezed off.
00:27:05.180 And so they called the paramedics, and the paramedics came right away.
00:27:09.660 And, of course, they started storming heaven.
00:27:11.700 And the Ingstrom family had a devotion to Fulton Sheen, and so they just kept praying to Fulton Sheen.
00:27:18.220 And they asked their friends in the area to pray also for his intercession.
00:27:23.300 And they continued to work on the child for all of that time, paramedics, doctors.
00:27:29.060 And the doctor was about to come in and write a certificate of death.
00:27:33.700 And it was the 61 minutes.
00:27:36.040 And all of a sudden, the child came back to life.
00:27:38.460 Heartbeat, resuscitation.
00:27:40.520 And what was beautiful was not just the fact that the child came back to life after 61 minutes,
00:27:45.380 that the child had no brain damage.
00:27:48.220 and is now a 15-year-old strapping young teenager
00:27:53.260 who will process the relics of Fulton Sheen at the beatification ceremony.
00:27:58.520 But again, just a miracle, I like to say a double miracle,
00:28:03.180 that he came back to life.
00:28:04.840 But even if you were choked out for 61 seconds, things can happen.
00:28:10.200 But to not have any blood flow or oxygen for 61 minutes
00:28:13.900 and to be totally, you would look at him and talk to him and say,
00:28:18.220 I didn't realize that you were dead for 61 minutes 15 years ago, you know, but again, God is good.
00:28:25.200 And there's many other miracles that are happening.
00:28:28.460 And again, God is in the miracle business.
00:28:31.180 I like to say that.
00:28:32.560 This is what's beautiful.
00:28:34.200 And, you know, I've been sharing the Holy Face devotion for many years.
00:28:38.620 And, you know, there were 6,000 documented miracles through the hands of Venerable Monsieur Dion de Pond.
00:28:46.780 and, again, the Holy Face Devotion,
00:28:49.180 but that's maybe another story altogether.
00:28:51.400 But, you know, we love the miracles that are happening,
00:28:55.380 but the miracles of conversion.
00:28:56.840 I think when I travel the country, John Henry,
00:29:00.160 and I speak to people about Fulton Sheen and his life,
00:29:03.620 they all have a Sheen story.
00:29:05.380 Everyone has been impacted by this man,
00:29:08.660 including my father, who is a convert to the Roman Catholic faith
00:29:12.980 through the hands of Sheen. 0.50
00:29:15.380 And that beautiful story is just that my dad was a Seventh-day Adventist, was thinking, going into ministry.
00:29:22.740 He felt a call to be involved in the church.
00:29:26.860 And, you know, he started to do the formation.
00:29:28.820 But he was listening to Fulton Sheen on the radio in the 40s to the Catholic Hour, where every week Fulton Sheen would unpack a catechesis and teach the faith.
00:29:39.020 And he was listening intently and realized that Fulton Sheen had an answer for every question regarding Scripture.
00:29:46.680 And the church does have a position on every line in Scripture, you know.
00:29:51.160 And yet he would go to his elders of the church and say, do we have a position on this?
00:29:56.540 And the elders would say, no, we're going to fake it till we make it.
00:30:00.280 Okay, so now I'm paraphrasing there, but they don't always have a hard and fast position on every line of Scripture.
00:30:07.900 But my dad started to become confident to say, I think it's okay to become a Catholic, because Fulton Sheen just kept putting him at ease.
00:30:19.160 And then he saw the converts. He saw the communists coming over. He saw all of this.
00:30:24.200 And then my dad watched him in the 1950s on television and just said, I'm ready to become a Catholic. I'm not afraid anymore.
00:30:31.460 And in 1957, he took instruction under Cardinal McGuigan in Toronto and became a Catholic.
00:30:38.800 And then he met my mother and, you know, the rest is history.
00:30:43.440 And I am grateful to Fulton Jean for a Catholic father because of his preaching and teaching.
00:30:50.860 And I think that's what I try to say to people.
00:30:53.440 Let's look at some of his preaching and teaching and you'll be impressed.
00:30:58.980 He will take you closer to Jesus.
00:31:01.880 He will lead you to Jesus if you give him a chance.
00:31:04.640 And I appreciate, John Henry, what you've been doing on your platform,
00:31:08.300 sharing Fulton Sheen's talks, some of his priestly retreats,
00:31:11.920 some of his talks on the Holy Hour.
00:31:13.720 We need this teaching, and that's what I've been sharing with people to say,
00:31:18.780 read Sheen, listen to Sheen, watch Sheen.
00:31:22.380 Don't just get caught up and admire Sheen.
00:31:24.820 you know um let's try to become like him and you know i i've gotten convinced i say to people all
00:31:32.140 the time i spent the first 10 years of my apostolic outreach with sheen sharing his books sharing his
00:31:40.420 audio recording sharing his teachings but what she was doing was he was forming me as a disciple
00:31:45.780 and that's where the light went on and said ah sheen forms disciples he's america's apostle
00:31:54.280 He's, you know, again, one of the apostles.
00:31:57.760 I mean, that's what the bishops are.
00:32:00.040 They're descendants of the apostles.
00:32:01.940 And they form disciples.
00:32:04.260 And so that's why I titled the book The Soul of a Disciple, because it's Sheen forming us.
00:32:10.980 It's Sheen teaching us to say, the end game is heaven, but I need to form you as a disciple so you can get to heaven.
00:32:17.940 And I always just say there's just five easy ways to do it, five simple pillars.
00:32:24.840 And I just do what Sheen did.
00:32:27.200 He teaches us about Jesus.
00:32:28.920 And that's why I gave reflections on the holy face in the book, The Soul of the Disciple.
00:32:33.900 He brings us to the Blessed Virgin Mary and says, you need her.
00:32:37.880 You need to remain with her.
00:32:39.640 Be formed by her.
00:32:41.180 Because that's what he did.
00:32:42.660 I mean, our Lord was formed by Our Lady.
00:32:45.460 He chose to be with her.
00:32:46.920 Again, he's saying, she will teach you. She will give you the example. So I cover that in the book. I talk about the Beatitudes and how Fulton Sheen would say, we need to become like the Lord. And the Beatitudes exemplify who Jesus is.
00:33:02.180 and of course we have to learn to love through the cross
00:33:05.580 and Sheen's writings on the seven last words
00:33:08.740 our lady at the foot of the cross
00:33:10.880 standing there being a witness
00:33:14.020 sharing her heart with him
00:33:15.900 and of course our Lord gives her as a gift
00:33:20.280 like he says behold your mother
00:33:22.380 and again she became our mother at the foot of the cross
00:33:26.500 so thanks be to God
00:33:27.480 and of course his writings on the Eucharist
00:33:29.600 We do a fifth retreat in the book called Learning to Abide.
00:33:34.300 We need to abide with Jesus.
00:33:36.280 And he's there.
00:33:37.160 He's present in every tabernacle all over the world.
00:33:40.440 We forget that sometimes.
00:33:42.640 Jesus is here with us.
00:33:44.760 And yet Fulton Sheen would say, come spend time with him.
00:33:47.860 You don't have to say anything.
00:33:49.200 Just be with him.
00:33:50.780 Be in his presence.
00:33:51.940 We're closer to him today.
00:33:54.300 When I go to my local Adoration Chapel, and I'm just inches away,
00:33:59.600 a few feet away. I get closer to Jesus in the Adoration Chapel and at church than many who
00:34:05.720 lived at the time of Jesus who were not that close. And so what a great privilege. What a
00:34:12.440 blessing. So these are all things that Sheen, he wants to form us as disciples. He's America's
00:34:18.300 apostle forming disciples. And I pray and I hope that people will read Sheen, watch Sheen,
00:34:25.940 listen to Sheen for years to come and be formed into the disciples that God is calling us to be.
00:34:32.460 Amen to that. And Al, in our last minute here, I just want to ask you one thing. You said,
00:34:37.880 as we started out, that when Isabel read to you from Sheen, you said, who is Sheen? And yet you
00:34:45.940 tell us that your dad actually became a Catholic through Sheen before he met your mom. How was it
00:34:52.980 that you didn't know that and how did you find out? Well, I have to say that my dad died 35 years
00:35:00.580 ago. Okay. And, and so my mother started to see me on EWTN television and, you know, all the
00:35:09.060 Catholic social media, you know, she's, she was very proud. All my son's on, you know, he's on
00:35:14.400 every, he's on every, everywhere. And so I went home and mom was really, you know, she'd give me
00:35:20.360 a big hug and she's all the friends are talking about you and they saw you on tv you know and
00:35:25.820 then my mom says i didn't tell you this story ever because remember i didn't find fulton sheen
00:35:30.380 until i was 48 years old you know my children were grown um they were going to university
00:35:35.420 and yet then my mother said i want to share with you this story about your dad and then of course
00:35:41.760 the the thing then she pulled out some fulton sheen books and said here's the books he was
00:35:46.320 reading, Life of Christ, and so much more. So yeah, tears in my eyes, and of course, because
00:35:52.920 God is a show-off, but I found that out, you know, after. So there you go.
00:35:58.260 Al Smith, thank you so much for joining us. I look forward to seeing you and many of our friends and
00:36:02.580 fans at LifeSite at the celebratory dinner that LifeSite is hosting, which unfortunately for 0.93
00:36:07.900 everybody else, it's sold out right now, but it's right after the Sheen beatification just steps
00:36:13.920 away from the stadium
00:36:16.220 where the Beatification is being held.
00:36:18.500 Look forward to seeing you there, my friend.
00:36:19.900 God bless you.
00:36:20.820 And God bless you too.
00:36:22.020 And God bless all of you.
00:36:23.600 And we'll see you next time.
00:36:27.880 Hello, I'm Frank Wright for LifeSite News.
00:36:31.520 I'm speaking to you today
00:36:32.720 in an appeal to you
00:36:33.920 to donate to LifeSite's fundraising campaign.
00:36:36.780 St. Augustine said,
00:36:38.440 if evil can be explained
00:36:40.260 as the deprivation of the good
00:36:42.240 from the lives of men.
00:36:43.920 When men lose sight of the good, evil fills their lives.
00:36:47.680 The mission of LifeSite News is to bring you the truth
00:36:50.880 about the crisis of the church and the state that we inhabit today.
00:36:54.960 And it is only LifeSite News, in my opinion, under the leadership of John Henry Weston,
00:36:59.520 that is prepared to do this regardless of the cost.
00:37:03.440 This means that LifeSite News cannot rely on monetisation on major platforms
00:37:08.720 and instead relies on you our faithful readers and viewers and subscribers to keep our mission
00:37:16.240 to bring you the truth of faith freedom life and the family in a time of universal deceit
00:37:24.160 and apparent apostasy
00:37:26.100 God bless you all
00:37:27.620 and I'll see you again soon
00:37:29.340 on LifeSiteUse