Bishop Fulton J. Sheen upset the landscape. He was the most successful TV preacher of the 1950s. Long before Ed Sullivan or 60 Minutes began their Sunday night TV reigns, Fulton Sheen's { 86 } Life Is Worth Living dominated the audience ratings.
But even before his TV show, this book, Peace of Soul, became a nationwide best-seller. Protestants as well as Catholics were buying it, and what they discovered was that they agreed with most of what the Roman Catholic bishop was writing. At times he sounded like Billy Graham.
It was a time when Protestantism and Catholicism seemed more widely separated than ever. The Pope was talking about making Mary, as the Mother of God, the co-redemptrix—a concept that made Protestants seethe. But at the same time, there was Fulton Sheen talking about man being born again: "The soul is dead when it has not that higher life which God alone can give." Then he refers to Paul's conversion and quotes from Pascal, Thompson's classic poem "Hound of Heaven," Augustine's Confessions, and the story of the prodigal son. "In other religions, one must be purified before he can knock at the door; in Christianity, one knocks on the door as a sinner, and He who answers to us heals. The moral crisis is ended when Christ confronts the soul, not as law, but as Mercy, and when the soul accepts the invitation, ׳Come unto me, all you that labor, and are burdened, and I will refresh you׳ (Matt. 11:28)."
Sheen concludes the chapter with an invitation: "What better time than now, with souls all unwashed, to come to His purifying hands? He alone is our way. Flee Him, and we are lost. He alone is our light. Depart from it, and we are blind. He alone is life. Leave Him, and we must die.... You say you are depressed and low in spirits? He brought you low only to make you want His heights!"
In Peace of Soul, Bishop Sheen targets Americans who were running to psychology for their answers. He asks readers to stop blaming their subconscious for their ills, to turn away from the psychoanalyst and turn to God, who alone can forgive our sins.
e^Ce !°f sou^׳ cannot come from human sources but
only through divine help.
Through the book Bishop Sheen reached several different audiences. He effectively talked to secular people with his chapters on frustration, anxiety, the denial of guilt, psychoanalysis, repression, and self-expression; and he told them that God is the answer. He also spoke effectively to Roman Catholics who were clearing away incrustations of tradition, helping them see the core of their faith. To Roman Catholic clergy his direct preaching and writing style pointed the way to effective communication with the masses. And to Protestants he showed the { many similarities of his faith with theirs, and also the common foe that both Catholics and Protestants together faced in an increasingly secularized society.
Sometimes Bishop Sheen's evangelistic fervor came through so strongly that some Protestants wondered if he was truly a Catholic. But his Catholic ties remained in place.
From 1926 to 1950 he taught philosophy at the Catholic University of America. In 1950 he became national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith and in 1956 bishop of Rochester. During Vatican II he served on the Commission on the Missions. He spoke in almost every major city in the United States and wrote more than thirty books. But the book through which Bishop Sheen made his mark on the century was Peace of Soul.