Archbishop Fulton Sheen - Already a saint in my book

St. Fultie, The Next American Saint?:
"Best known for his TV appearances in his Emmy Award winning half-hour program, 'Life is Worth Living,' the archbishop regularly drew an astounding 25 million viewers of all faiths, getting higher ratings than Milton Berle, then host of one of one of the most popular TV shows of the times."

I remember watching Bishop Sheen, as he then was, on his television show when I was a child. He ranked with Billy Graham as one of the most respected and admired men in America. And, despite the differences of the faith traditions they represented (which Graham still does, of course), they had something very important in common. They focused their public ministries on meeting the spiritual needs of people in their daily lives. Neither man ever publicly questioned or denigrated the distinctives of his own faith, but both recognized that it wasn't "total immersion" of "papal infallability" that could comfort someone dealing with a seriously ill child, a dying parent, an unfaithful spouse or some other tragedy in their lives. They brought the message of Love and Hope that is available to all because Christ died for our sins.

The article does not mention it, but Sheen also acquired the title of Vicar of the American Armed Forces, even travelling to Vietnam to bring a message of comfort and concern to our troops.

I am more than a little uncomfortable with the whole business of canonization in the Roman church. I believe in miracles, but the credit must always go to Christ. So, I have no position on whether Fulton Sheen should be named by the Bishop of Rome as a saint.

But, by nearly any standard, Fulton Sheen was a great American. And, in the way in which St. Paul spoke in his letters of his fellow workers as saints, Sheen was a saint as well. And so is Billy Graham.