A heartwarming new look at beloved Roman Catholic bishop and TV personality Fulton J. Sheen is long overdue, says Monsignor Hilary Franco, Sheen's longtime assistant.
But the wait is over.
Franco — adviser at the Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations — is out with a new book,
"Bishop Sheen: Mentor and Friend," written with Lisa and Geno Delfino and published by New Hope Publications.
"This book is long overdue because it should've been my duty to do so a long time ago, but my work for the church distracted me from this very essential task," Franco said Wednesday on "The Steve Malzberg Show" on
Newsmax TV.
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"We have come to the conclusion with the publication of this book this week. It is not only my memories on my life with him, but also [looks at] the over 100 handwritten letters that he wrote to me while I was in Rome at the Vatican."
Sheen, who may eventually be canonized as a saint, was the bishop of Rochester, N.Y., and gained nationwide fame in the 1950s and '60s on television with his folksy, matter-of-fact parables.
He was also outspoken and would not be muzzled on the issues of the day, such as opposing the Vietnam War.
Franco was Sheen's assistant when he was auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York. The two would walk from the church to a television studio where Sheen delivered his popular missives, which had an audience — huge at the time — of 40 million viewers.
Time magazine dubbed Sheen "the golden-voiced Msgr. Fulton J. Sheen, U.S. Catholicism's famed proselytizer."
"This is a man for all seasons . . . We do hope that he will be declared the blessed as soon as possible and then go on to become a saint," Franco told host Steve Malzberg.
"The saint for the communications media, and that would be a tremendous thing. We deserve someone who would be a patron saint up there in the mass media."
That may be a way off, however, because of a disagreement between Illinois Bishop Daniel Jenky and Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York. They are in dispute over who holds claim to Sheen's body: the Archdiocese of New York, where his body lies, or the Diocese of Peoria, where Sheen was raised and ordained.
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