Milan (AsiaNews) - Thursday 24 September in the United States will mark the beatification of Bishop Fulton Sheen (1895–1979), a theologian and preacher, formerly auxiliary bishop of New York and later archbishop of Newark, who is remembered in America above all as one of the first Catholic voices on radio and television thanks to his programme Life is Worth Living, which reached millions of people.
Bishop Sheen was, however, also a highly significant figure in missionary work: for years he served as national director in the United States for the Pontifical Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and later contributed to the drafting of the decree “Ad gentes”, the Second Vatican Council’s document on the evangelisation of peoples. Another of his great contributions was the founding and editorship of Worldmission, the US missionary journal. It was in this capacity that his ministry became significantly intertwined with the life and sufferings of the Church in China.
He had had the opportunity to get to know those communities personally during a trip he undertook to China in the spring of 1948, that is, before the victory of Mao’s Communists.
The details of this journey and all that followed were reconstructed ten years ago by Fr Robert Carbonneau – a Passionist and scholar of the Church in China – in an essay entitled ‘Bishop Fulton J. Sheen and the Image of China and Chinese Catholicism in the journal Worldmission, 1950–1966’, published in the journal *U.S. Catholic Historian*.
On 12 April 1948, Sheen had set off for China as part of a fifteen-strong delegation led by the then Cardinal Archbishop of New York, Francis Spellman. “As well as offering Sheen a first-hand insight into Chinese culture and ideas,” notes Fr Carbonneau, “the trip gave him the opportunity to put his skills as a public speaker and radio personality to good use, and to meet some of the key political and ecclesiastical figures who would shape Chinese Catholic identity over the following decade.”
Sheen and the delegation of which he was a member had the opportunity to dine in Hong Kong with a select group of military and civilian leaders who were opposed to Chinese communism. In Shanghai, he also gave a lecture at Aurora Catholic University and delivered a radio address on religion. He also accompanied Bishop Walsh to “one of the most sumptuously decorated houses” in China, where he had tea with the wife of Generalissimo Chiang Kai-shek, President of the Republic of China. Sheen was struck by her piety and that of her husband.
In particular, Sheen recalled that she told him: “There will never be peace in China until China becomes Christian.” Sheen then gave another lecture at Nanjing National University and met Chiang Kai-shek in the presence of the Minister of Education. He also preached in Nanjing Cathedral, before travelling to Beijing where he met the Divine Word Missionary Cardinal Thomas Tien.
In his autobiography, Sheen also recounts two stories linked to China that had shaped his personal faith. Although he had never met the missionary bishop in China, Francis X. Ford – a Maryknoll missionary who died in captivity in China in February 1952 – he did, however, have the opportunity to meet Sister Joan Marie Ryan, who had been his secretary. She told him how Ford had kept his faith steadfast in the face of Communist persecution, and this moved Sheen deeply.
He also loved to recall the story of a young Chinese girl – ‘little Li’ – which he had heard from Chinese Catholics and which had become a source of inspiration for his devotion to the Eucharist. In her village, whilst arresting a Chinese priest, the Communists had thrown 32 consecrated hosts onto the church floor as an act of insult. The girl had noticed them and decided to continue visiting that church every day regardless, consuming one consecrated host each time. She carried on for several days until a Communist guard noticed her, and this act of witness led to her death.
In his essay, Fr Carbonneau reconstructs the essential role that Worldmission, under the guidance of Fulton Sheen, played in informing America about the Communist persecution of the Church in China. In particular, a 1953 editorial – entitled ‘Wet Martyrs and Dry Martyrs’ – established him as a leading figure in the anti-Communist movement. “ ‘Roman persecution,’ he wrote in that editorial, ‘was chiefly physical; Communist persecution is chiefly psychological. The former attacks the body; the latter attacks the mind. The Romans produced “wet martyrs”; the Communists produce “dry martyrs”.’ A comparison that clearly showed how prolonged imprisonment can be just as much a reality as the blood of martyrdom.
However, to reduce Fulton Sheen’s view of China to a mere condemnation of the communist regime is a limiting exercise. As Fr Carbonneau astutely observes, Worldmission’s account of what was happening in Beijing was always guided by a perspective of faith rather than a political stance. “Worldmission,” writes the Passionist historian, “deserves credit for publishing, in 1951, Gregory Grady’s harrowing list of Chinese priests and foreign missionaries who had been murdered or were still imprisoned, as well as Thomas Berry’s clear appeal in 1956 that the study of Chinese culture should be regarded as just as important as prayer for Chinese Catholics.”
“Sheen did not fan the flames of the ‘Red Scare’ [editor’s note: the Red Scare],” concludes Fr Corbennau. “Rather, he ensured that the magazine’s content lent credibility and respect to both the foreign missionaries and the Chinese Catholics who endured suffering and persecution together.” Although the historic and strong missionary presence in China was drawing to a close, Sheen presented Catholics in China as equal partners with the other indigenous local Churches that were emerging at that time. Scholars would benefit from delving deeper into this analysis of China to investigate more thoroughly how Sheen and the magazine *Worldmission* presented the image of the universal Church during the Cold War years.”
