Pope receives papers for cause of Fulton Sheen — and reveals that he worked with him

A small but significant step forward for the cause of the man who (I hope) will one day be the patron saint of television (alongside St. Claire, of course).

Details:

When Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of Peoria, Ill., presented Pope Benedict XVI with two thick volumes about the life of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the pope surprised him by saying he had worked with the late archbishop.

Pope Benedict “told me something I hadn’t known: he worked on the commission for mission at the Second Vatican Council with Fulton Sheen,” Bishop Jenky told Catholic News Service. The pope served as a theological expert at the council in the 1960s.

At the end of the pope’s weekly general audience May 25, Bishop Jenky presented the pope with two leather-bound volumes with golden lettering on the side: “Fultonius Ioannes Sheen.”

The tomes — totaling close to 2,000 pages — are the “positio,” the official position paper, outlining why the Catholic Church should recognize Archbishop Sheen as a saint.

Archbishop Sheen, who was born in Illinois in 1895 and died in New York in 1979, was an Emmy-winning televangelist. His program, “Life is Worth Living,” aired in the United States from 1951 to 1957.

Bishop Jenky said, “I hope it helps” that the pope personally knew Archbishop Sheen, who was national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1950-66 and attended every session of Vatican II.

You can read more at the link.