On March 31, 2025, while in Rome for the Jubilee Year for Missionaries of Mercy, Monsignor Roger J. Landry delivered a talk at the Pontifical North American College—the seminary for the United States in Rome—highlighting the life and legacy of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen as the greatest Catholic preacher in American history and a passionate advocate for the missions.
Drawing from Sheen’s life, ministry, and missionary zeal, Monsignor Landry invited seminarians to rediscover the fire of preaching, reminding them that “the priest at ordination was told to preach. The office is to be taken so seriously as to make every priest cry out with Paul, ‘Woe to me if I do not preach the Gospel’ (1 Cor 9:16).”
For Sheen, preaching wasn’t just a duty—it was a manifestation of love. “To be a good speaker, there must be imagination, there must be fire,” he wrote. “There cannot be fire and passion unless there is tremendous love—a love of truth, a love of country, a love of a cause.” Monsignor Landry echoed this message, encouraging future priests to preach not only with theological clarity but with genuine affection for Christ and His people.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen, in an undated photo.
A Life of Preparation and Prayer
Sheen famously prepared his homilies before the Blessed Sacrament, believing that preaching must be forged in prayer. He once said, “How much more our words would burn as we preach if we prepared our sermons before the Eucharistic Lord… if we kept the Scriptures ever open near us, that we might gird ourselves with their truth when mounting the pulpit!”
Monsignor Landry emphasized this example, noting that Sheen considered careful preparation a moral duty, and that his own formation was shaped by a desire to preach with Pentecostal fire.
As National Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith from 1950 to 1966, Sheen raised hundreds of millions of dollars for the missions and gave away $10 million of his personal income. He designed the World Mission Rosary, founded Mission Magazine, and consistently encouraged Catholics to live their faith through missionary action.
“To be Catholic is to be missionary,” Sheen often said. “Christ has sent us into the world to be witnesses, not successes.”
Monsignor Landry reminded the seminarians that this missionary identity is not optional or secondary, but central to the priesthood. Quoting Redemptoris Missio, he said, “Every priestly ministry shares in the universal scope of the mission that Christ entrusted to his apostles… Priests must have the mind and the heart of missionaries—open to the needs of the Church and the world.”
Preaching the Gospel to the Ends of the Earth
Reflecting on Sheen’s contributions at the Second Vatican Council, Monsignor Landry highlighted how Sheen spoke out for the missions, especially in regions where just a few priests served vast territories. “It is souls, not territories, which make the missions,” Sheen insisted. “What God has joined together—the Church and the missions—let no schema separate.”
Monsignor Landry closed with a challenge: “Without the mission to the nations, the Church’s very missionary dimension would be deprived of its essential meaning.”
