The Anti-Nationalist Patriotism of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen

Abstract

Scholars today regard Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen as a supporting player in the American efforts to drum up support for the Cold War; however, this view limits Sheen’s influence to the years he spent on television hosting his program, Life Is Worth Living (1952–1957). Yet, by the time Sheen left his program, he had been part of public discussions of religion and American politics for almost thirty years. Before his 1930 debut as an authoritative Catholic voice in America, Sheen had become a decorated Catholic scholar, both in his home country and in Europe, earning him a papal audience and broad support in the American Catholic hierarchy. His early contributions to public discussion were sophisticated adaptations of Leonine Catholic social teaching to American circumstances. Critical to his teachings was his view of the American people as the source for political legitimacy. In this respect, he defied the more reactionary clergy of Europe; however, Sheen’s views were vital to his efforts to distinguish why America had a just war against the totalitarian governments of the Axis powers but also a duty to spare people who were as likely to be victims of the regime as they were supporters. Sheen carried this distinction into the Cold War, in which he called for Americans to support the Russian people by opposing totalitarian government there. Therefore, Sheen never advocated the “us vs. them” nationalism so common among Cold War propaganda, which is consistent with his initial opposition to the Vietnam War and his only partial reconsideration of that opposition later.