Recalling the Sheen of Catholicism’s heyday

Another sign of the strength of American Catholicism in the 1950s was the number of converts who were received into the Church. This was one of the highest priorities of the Church: She who possessed the fullness of truth was filled with a strong evangelistic fervor to share that truth with as many people as possible. …

… Perhaps the single best-known convert instructor, of course, was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen. In the 1950s, Sheen was at the height of his popularity; his Emmy Award–winning program, Life Is Worth Living, made Sheen a household name and brought him — and the Faith — to the attention of millions. It would be impossible to calculate how many were brought to the Church through his broadcasts and books. Some who were received into the fullness of faith, however, were particularly well known, and their conversions were well noted.

Clare Boothe Luce was, without doubt, one of Sheen’s best-known students. The wife of Henry Luce, founder of an empire that would come to include such publications as Time, Life, Sports Illustrated, and People magazines, she was a distinguished author and writer of Broadway plays, not to mention a Congresswoman from Connecticut and a United States ambassador to Italy. Bishop Sheen felt that never in his life had he been so privileged to instruct anyone who was as “brilliant and scintillating in conversation as Mrs. Luce.”

As to Clare’s ultimate conversion:

“It finally took two world wars, the overthrow of several dozen thrones and governments, the Russian revolution, the swift collapse, in our own time, of hundreds of thought-systems, a small number of which collapsed on me, the death of millions, as well as the death of my daughter, before I was willing to take a look at this extraordinary institution, the Catholic Church.”

It had been her daughter’s death that stimulated her to discuss religion with then-Monsignor Sheen. She became irate at Sheen’s mention of the goodness of God, asking why, if God was so good, He had taken her daughter in an automobile accident. Sheen replied: so that she, Clare, might now be taking the first steps needed for conversion. She feared her own death, and whether she would merit an afterlife, and wanted to rid herself of her burden of sin.

… On February 16, 1946 … Sheen received Mrs. Clare Boothe Luce into the Catholic Church in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. … As a sign of gratitude, she commissioned a celebrated artist to paint a portrait of Monsignor Sheen against a background of the shrine of Our Lady of Lourdes. To this day, it is one of the most recognizable depictions of Venerable Sheen.

Excerpt from Toil and Transcendence: Catholicism in 20th-Century America,
by Rev. Charles P. Connor, S.T.L., Ph.D. (EWTN Publishing, Inc., 2020), pp. 258-60.

FR. CHARLES CONNOR, S.T.L., PH.D, a faculty member at Mount St. Mary’s Seminary in Emmitsburg, MD, is an expert in Church history. He is the host of several television series on EWTN including Historic Catholic Converts.