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Monsignor Hilary Franco has lived close to history without ever seeming interested in claiming its spotlight.

As a young priest, he spent eight years at the side of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, serving as his personal secretary while Archbishop Sheen led The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. He traveled with him to mission territories, lived in his household and saw the hidden discipline behind the public brilliance: the study, the daily Holy Hour, the concern for missionaries and the patience shown to strangers who stopped him on the streets of New York.

Monsignor Franco later entered the diplomatic service of the Holy See and went on to advise four popes. By any ordinary measure, such a life would make him a leading character in his own right. Yet his vocation has largely been one of service beside consequential men—helping, counseling and preserving memories that might otherwise have been lost.

Believed to be the last surviving member of Archbishop Sheen’s household, and the author of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen: Mentor and Friend, Monsignor Franco spoke with MISSION Magazine about the missionary bishop he knew so intimately and the vision of the universal Church that shaped both of their lives.

MISSION: You traveled extensively with Archbishop Sheen to mission territories around the world. What most impressed you about the way he approached those visits? Was he primarily a preacher, a fundraiser, or did you see something else in the way he encountered missionaries and the local faithful?

Monsignor Franco: Every time we visited a mission country, the goal of Archbishop Sheen was to meet and support missionaries, bring his help—also financial—and especially meet local people, extending his hand and embracing them, even when we would visit leper colonies. Certainly no fundraising; just the opposite. He wanted to give them a message of hope, especially in desperate situations, and we witnessed so many of them.

Going to these countries was not an easy task. Facilities were scarce, and traveling for thousands of miles was not comfortable. But he felt he had to do it because, as he would often say, “Caritas Christi urget nos”—the love of Christ impels us (2 Cor. 5:14). He truly sensed that kind of urgency, as St. Paul had.

MISSION: Archbishop Sheen often reminded American Catholics that the missions were not places of charity alone, but places where the Church was growing and teaching the universal Church. Did you ever see his understanding of the missions challenged or deepened by something he witnessed during those journeys?

Monsignor Franco: Archbishop Sheen always insisted, in his preaching and in his travels around our country, that we are all Church, in every corner of the world, and that we are always connected to every member of the faithful, wherever they are. He would always ask American Catholics to share whatever they had been given, through the grace of God, with those less fortunate, especially in mission countries. He used the Missionary Rosary, with its different colors for the five continents, to instill this concept in the minds of the American faithful.

The concept of the “ecclesia,” according to him, should give the faithful the idea that wherever a member of the Church is in need, that member should be helped by the other, more comfortable members of the Church all over the world.

If you really wish to understand the meaning of “mission” as Archbishop Sheen intended it, it would be enough to read his intervention to the Fathers of the Second Vatican Council on “the Church of the poor,” in the fall of 1964. He told the Council Fathers that it was paramount for the Church to embrace poverty and refocus on global missions.

“In place of the theological question, ‘What are the missions?’, I would suggest that we turn to the practical question ‘Where are the missions?’”

MISSION: Years later, as a Vatican diplomat, you returned to some of the same countries you had first visited with Archbishop Sheen. Were there places where you could actually see the fruits of the Church’s missionary work—new dioceses, schools, hospitals, seminaries, or vibrant local communities? How did those experiences reinforce what Archbishop Sheen used to tell American Catholics about supporting the missions?

Monsignor Franco: It was indeed a great experience for me, much later in my life—I was rather young when I lived with him—to visit those same countries and see how the seed sown by Archbishop Sheen had really grown, like the mustard seed. Yes: orphanages, health facilities, places where children without mothers were welcomed and cared for.

By the way, St. Teresa of Calcutta had been helped by Archbishop Sheen in her manifold activities. She would come to our office on Fifth Avenue when she was in New York and pray the Missionary Rosary with us, as we did every day with the office staff at 3 p.m.

MISSION: During Archbishop Sheen’s years leading the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, MISSION Magazine reached hundreds of thousands of readers, and the office received thousands of letters each week. Why do you think he was able to inspire ordinary Catholics to feel personally connected to people they would never meet in mission lands?

Monsignor Franco: MISSION Magazine was a very important work of our office. Interestingly, just recently, I was looking at some of my old diaries, and I read that on December 29 and 30 of 1965, we had long meetings in the office preparing the new year’s ideas for MISSION Magazine. I was also a board member of another important publication we had at the time, called WORLDMISSION.

It was indeed through MISSION Magazine—easy to carry with you wherever you went—that we inspired readers to help the mission territories, sharing with them the manifold activities of our office. We sometimes used the artistic renditions of the Hildebrandt brothers, who were great visual illustrators in their twenties at the time, and who later became well known for their work on productions including “The Lord of the Rings” and “Star Wars.”

MISSION: If Archbishop Sheen could speak to the readers of MISSION Magazine today, at a time when the Church has a pope born in the United States who spent most of his priesthood as a missionary, what do you think he would want Catholics to understand about their responsibility for the Church’s mission?

Monsignor Franco: I truly believe that Archbishop Sheen was a prophet, as I personally remember and can see from his handwritten letters. I feel that the concepts, the ideas, and the devices used in MISSION Magazine in his time should be rediscovered today and used for the present and the future. Those ideas and ideals were precious, and they portrayed a universal character that readers deeply appreciated.

Naturally, we can rely on the fact that the Church now has a universal pastor who has been a missionary—even though Peru is part of Latin America—and who knows the needs of the Church at large. I was so impressed by his missionary spirit during the times I have been with him, especially during a private audience he granted me last year. But still, I believe Archbishop Sheen’s MISSION of his time should be revisited, so that we might draw ideas from that publication today.

MISSION: People often remember Archbishop Sheen as a brilliant communicator on television. You knew him behind the scenes. Was there a moment in the missions—a conversation with a missionary, a family, or a child—that stayed with him long after the cameras were gone, and that revealed what truly moved his heart?

Monsignor Franco: I have to resort again to my diaries of those days—I have been very faithful in writing diaries. You have no idea how many times, at least two or three times a week, missionaries would come to visit and usually remain with us for lunch or dinner at the residence. Frederick, a Norwegian Lutheran, was our cook; he had left the service of Billy Rose, the great Broadway entrepreneur, to come and serve Archbishop Sheen. During our meals, we would discuss the problems of the missionary places they came from, and sometimes we would invite them to join us at a television studio for his program.

I asked Archbishop Sheen, during our first meeting on August 19, 1959—which was supposed to last 15 minutes and ended up lasting 43—“Your Excellency, what is the secret of your brilliant success on television?” His answer: “I am brilliant because I am not brilliant. People think I am brilliant, but this happens not because it is a natural gift, but because I have studied all my life, and continue to do so daily, and after presenting what I have in mind to the Lord in the Blessed Sacrament”—that is, his daily Holy Hour—“I read the problems of today and try to present a solution to my audience.”

People would stop him constantly, and he was so humble. He listened to them and blessed them. They would ask for an autograph or a picture—I always ended up taking the picture—and he humbly obliged. We would walk from our residence at 109 East 38th Street to the office on Fifth Avenue, which should have taken about 10 minutes. It never did with Archbishop Sheen. He would patiently stop and talk to people from all walks of life.

I could go on and on. Some years ago, I published a book about him, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen: Mentor and Friend. But even there, I don’t think I managed to capture what I carry in my memory, and especially in my heart, for this truly holy man with whom I had the privilege, through the providential plan of God, to live and work for years.

Click HERE to read the full issue of MISSION Magazine where this article was featured.