The Argument of Holiness

April 1, 2026

The witness of Venerable Fulton Sheen reminds us that the most convincing testimony to the Gospel is a life transformed by Christ and lived for others

By Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly

April 1, 2026

Supreme Knight Patrick E. Kelly (Photo by Michael Collopy)

In February, the Holy See informed the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, that the beatification of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen could move forward. This followed the approval in 2019 of a miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession.

Archbishop Sheen first came to national prominence in the 1950s through his syndicated television series, Life Is Worth Living. He was a man of tremendous talents: a television personality, author, teacher and one of the greatest evangelists of the 20th century. He was also a Fourth Degree Knight of Columbus and member of Council 178 in Rochester, New York.

Sheen spent his entire life bringing people to Christ. He was particularly eloquent when urging the laity — and especially the Knights of Columbus — to take bold action in defense of our faith. In an address to the 88th Supreme Convention in 1970, he called Knights to read the “signs of the times” amid the social upheaval of the day. He urged us to meet those challenges by embracing a “theology of the laity” — one grounded in action that keeps Christ at the center. Our focus, he continued, should not be on “Christ in the abstract, but in the concrete, [Christ] who is in this world needing and wanting our help.” We must see Christ in everyone, he said. “Christ is in agony in men until the end of the world.”

Archbishop Sheen spent his entire life bringing people to Christ. ... He put enormous talents at the service of God — and he urged all of us, no matter our talents, to do the same.

Archbishop Sheen knew that real change is not brought about through political programs or social revolutions. Rather, he said, “the only argument that is left to convince others is holiness. The world has heard every other argument and it is ready to reject them all except one: holiness.”

Whether speaking to millions on television or to a family in their living room, Archbishop Sheen was always calling people to an encounter with Christ. When I was a boy in the mid-1970s, he spent several days at my family’s parish, Holy Family, in Grand Blanc, Michigan. Our pastor brought him to our home one evening for dinner, and we spent several hours captivated by the stories he told. I will never forget his gripping account of handing crucifixes to 500 lepers living in a colony in Uganda — a story he vividly recounts in his autobiography, Treasure in Clay.

Archbishop Sheen put enormous talents at the service of God — and he urged all of us, no matter our talents, to do the same. He wrote: “God has given different talents to different people. There is no basis for feeling inferior to another who has a different gift. Once it is realized that we shall be judged by the gift we have received, rather than by the gift we have not, one is completely delivered from a sense of false inferiority.”

The archbishop drew his energy and insights from a daily Holy Hour, which he called “the hour that makes my day.” It was his daily encounter with Christ. He wrote in his autobiography, “Neither theological knowledge nor social action is enough to keep us in love with Christ unless both are preceded by a personal encounter with Him.” A full hour was necessary, he added, because it is “not so brief as to prevent the soul from collecting itself and shaking off the multitudinous distractions of the world. Sitting before the Presence is like a body exposing itself to the sun to absorb its rays.”

For Archbishop Sheen, his daily Holy Hour was like “oxygen”: “Even when it seemed unprofitable and lacking in spiritual intimacy, I still had the sensation of being at least like a dog at the master’s door, ready in case he called me.”

Until his death in 1979, Sheen never stopped pursuing holiness — for himself and for others. His secret was a combination of using his God-given talents to their utmost while persevering in prayer every day. It worked for him, and it can work for us, too.

Vivat Jesus!

The Argument of Holiness

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