Fr. Roger J. Landry
\nPutting into the Deep
\nThe Anchor
\nSeptember 12, 2014<\/p>\n
During my time in college and seminary, I developed a great devotion to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I would regularly listen to recordings of his innumerable retreat conferences, Good Friday meditations and catechetical instructions on my \u201cWalkman\u201d while exercising or in my car on frequent long drives. I read many of his 69 books and purchased and repeatedly watched his \u201cLife is Worth Living\u201d videos.<\/p>\n
I was transfixed by his brilliant insights into the Gospel as well as the passion with which he\u00a0communicated them. He greatly influenced the way I grew to understand, pray and preach the Scriptures. His thoughts on the priesthood \u2014\u00a0especially his sense that with Christ every priest must be a priest-victim; his notion that a priest needs to have one foot in the fonts of the faith and another in the daily newspaper; his insistence that priests make a daily Eucharistic holy hour; and his love of the Blessed Mother shown above all through celebrating a votive Mass each Saturday in her honor \u2014 all became parts of my priestly DNA.<\/p>\n
My devotion to him has just kept growing over the years. Whenever I\u2019m in Manhattan, I visit St. Patrick\u2019s Cathedral in order, above all, to pray at or near his tomb. When I was preaching a parish mission in the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, a few years ago, I made a pilgrimage to his birthplace in El Paso, to the Cathedral of St. Mary where he used to serve Mass and where he was ordained a priest, and to the excellent museum set up to honor him within the Diocese\u2019s Spaulding Center. It was there that I picked up a holy card with a prayer for his canonization that I\u2019ve been praying almost every day since.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s why last Wednesday\u2019s decision of the Diocese of Peoria to suspend his cause for canonization when everything seemed ready for his beatification as early as next year flummoxed me. And the reason given and the way it was done saddened me immensely.<\/p>\n
The Diocese of Peoria put out a press release trying to blame the Archdiocese of New York for the suspension of the process, saying that New York refused to agree to transfer Sheen\u2019s body to Peoria so that the body could be examined and relics taken as part of the normal procedure for beatification. But those protocols can be fulfilled anywhere, including where Sheen\u2019s tomb is in New York.<\/p>\n
Peoria\u2019s release was an undignified attempt to foment public, political pressure on New York to force New York to acquiesce to Peoria\u2019s 12-year effort to get Sheen\u2019s body returned to his native place. Because New York has not agreed to transfer his remains, Peoria would unilaterally shut down the cause for canonization.<\/p>\n
This shows, lamentably, that Peoria cares less about Sheen\u2019s beatification than it does in having his corpus be the centerpiece of a national shrine it\u2019s seeking to build.<\/p>\n
Peoria halted the process for the same reasons once before in Nov. 2010, but three months later resumed it because its attempts to shame New York into capitulation failed.<\/p>\n
What should Catholics think about this controversy? We can begin with some relevant facts.<\/p>\n
First, because Sheen died in and was buried, at his express request, in New York, New York had the right to be in charge of his cause, but formally declined to lead it in 2002 for various reasons. Peoria agreed to take responsibility. Since then Peoria has expended much effort and money pushing forward the case and we wouldn\u2019t be where we are without Peoria\u2019s diligence.<\/p>\n
Second, Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan both have great devotions to Sheen and obvious reasons for wanting Sheen\u2019s principal relics in their diocese as a center of veneration.<\/p>\n
Third, the most appropriate place for Sheen to have been buried would have been in Rochester, NY, where he had been the Diocesan bishop, but in his will he wanted to be buried in New York City. That doesn\u2019t necessarily have to be the final and only word, but it is a highly significant.<\/p>\n
Fourth, Bishop Jenky says that former Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Edward Egan, had in 2002 and 2004 agreed to translate Sheen\u2019s body to Peoria and that Peoria is just trying to get New York to fulfill its promise. We have not heard from Cardinal Egan as to whether this was a misperception, whether he said it and later changed his mind, or whether he recognized that it is not his sole decision, but one that also legally involves the members of Sheen\u2019s family. Regardless, we\u2019re dealing with what would have been a gift of New York \u2014\u00a0a gift that Peoria would obviously\u00a0be sad to lose \u2014 but not a \u201cright\u201d of Peoria to Sheen\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
Fifth, the process of beatification, technically, could continue without the examination of the body and acquisition of relics. An examination is needed simply to identify the remains \u2014 something that\u2019s clear in Sheen\u2019s case \u2014 and second-class relics (what someone used, like clothing) suffice for a beatification ceremony. First-class relics (parts of the body, hair, nails) are obviously preferred liturgically and devotionally, but the lack of them won\u2019t hold up a beatification.<\/p>\n
New York has been giving Peoria a hard time about the relics, perhaps because Peoria has been giving New York difficulties about the translation of the body. Peoria says that New York\u2019s lawyer sent a letter in June saying it would never allow the examination of the body, the securing of relics or the transfer of the body. New York, however, in a press release last\u00a0Friday went on record saying it would allow the examination of the body and the securing of relics provided that it would not involve the dismemberment of Sheen\u2019s body.<\/p>\n
What\u2019s the path forward? I think it involves three elements.<\/p>\n
First, Peoria should acknowledge that New York isn\u2019t going to permit the transfer of Sheen\u2019s body. Even if Peoria feels betrayed, it should respond to the disappointment as Christians and stop waging battle politically through the media. It has three times publicly detracted the Archdiocese of New York and by implication its leaders. A good end never justifies immoral means. Peoria\u2019s method is a total departure from the method of Sheen himself, who, even though everyone knew he had serious issues with Cardinal Spellman of New York, remained silent, refusing to use his media prominence to embarrass the Archbishop or undercut his authority. He knew that to do so would result in a loss for the Church and scandal for many. The Diocese promoting his cause would do well to follow his example.<\/p>\n
Second, New York should be generous in cooperating with the relic acquisition. The New York press release implies it will allow Peoria to leave with a few strands of hair found in Sheen\u2019s sarcophagus, something that’s clearly parsimonious considering\u00a0Peoria\u2019s 12 years of hard and heroic work pushing Sheen\u2019s cause. Even if New York is righteously indignant about Peoria\u2019s public methods and importunity, New York \u2014 considering Peoria\u2019s understandable disappointment in not receiving the body \u2014 should at least allow it to return with major relics for its proposed national shrine. The history of Catholic veneration of saints would suggest several ways to do this that would be\u00a0both respectful to the integrity of Sheen’s remains as well as\u00a0more amply\u00a0conducive to fostering genuine devotion.<\/p>\n
Third, all those who love Sheen and love the Church should pray through Sheen\u2019s intercession that the parties involved will come to a fair accord quickly, that Peoria will decide to resume promotion of the cause and suspend its pattern of unbecoming public detraction, and that all of us within a short period of time may be able to celebrate the Mass of the first native born American bishop to be raised to the altars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fr. Roger J. Landry Putting into the Deep The Anchor September 12, 2014 During my time in college and seminary, I developed a great devotion to Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. I would regularly listen to recordings of his innumerable retreat conferences, Good Friday meditations and catechetical instructions on my \u201cWalkman\u201d while exercising or in my […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[1013,708],"tags":[5276,6641,6603,6642,6602,6604,2860],"class_list":["post-7296","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-anchor-column","category-articles","tag-archbishop-fulton-j-sheen","tag-archdiocese-of-new-york","tag-bishop-daniel-jenky","tag-cardinal-edward-egan","tag-cardinal-timothy-dolan","tag-diocese-of-peoria","tag-relics"],"yoast_head":"\n