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The hour-long documentary, entitled, “Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen: Servant of All,” offers both entertainment and a powerful message of evangelization as it follows the life of the famous archbishop (1895-1979). The video includes the testimonies of dozens of individuals who were touched by the life of the archbishop. It also shows footage from his popular television program, “Life is Worth Living.”
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Everyone has their own story about meeting or interacting with a famous person. That was the rationale for the “Farley file” of Ike’s campaign as highlighted in the Heinlein story Double Star.
Sigh, those were the days. My younger years.
My “Bishop Sheen” story was that of an obnoxious fat little Good Shepherd grammar school kid focused, as usual, on an absurd little goal.
We were given “boosters” to sell for the “Propagation of the Faith”. Long story short, I happened to be outside the old Polo Grounds in the early evening one Saturday before the Good Bishop was to speak and say Mass for a mod of folks. What better place to find suckers … err I mean the faithful willing to give a wee lad a contribution for Holy Mother Church. So I am peddling my “boosters” to anyone who looks like they have few bucks. Up pulls a limo. Hey hot target I think. So I zip over and get ready to do my spiel. We were give a stock script. But I embellished the close. SO this fellow gets out with two young guys. Black coats all. Buttoned up. That should have been a clue; it wasn’t that cold. But I was into my pitch. “Yada, yada, yada.” And, into my close: “And, of course, I’m going to pray specifically and by name for each person that buys a Propagation of the Faith booster from me. Care to spend a dollar for the Pope?” To which this guy breaks out into a belly laugh. “Certainly, I’ll take five.” He turns to one the young guys with his hand out and a five comes from somewhere. He takes my cardboard booster and writes on it. Rips off his half and says: “Can you do me a favor and fill out the rest?” “Of course, I’m a full service fund raiser.” He asks: “And, why are you doing this? Do you want the Church to suceed?” “Not particularly. That’s good. But I want to get out of homework for a month if I win.” He laughed and said: “That’s a good goal. And, I’ll pray you reach all your goals.” At that point, he patted me on my head and rushed off. I looked at the the stub and it was signed “F. J. Sheen Servant of God”. No one at school believed it, but I had the evidence.
Like stupid kid, I turned the stub in. I should have kept it! Dumb, dumb, dumb.
And, btw, I won. But the Brothers reneged on the “prize”. No Federal Courts for little plantiffs who got screwed. I not only got homework form then on, but I got several punish lessons for the tirade I went on.
Any wonder, why I have no sense of security or confidence when ANY authority figure tells me ANYTHING. Remember Judge Judy!
Argh!
And, you wonder why I hated school?
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Reinke Faces Life 
I went to Catholic school and so I was “required” to listen. The next day there was always an “all grades” quiz about his program. This was no trivial test. You’d be expected to answer ten “factual” questions about the versus referred to, the concepts he touched on, and even the diagrams he drew. Then there was always at least one essay question where we were expected to relate his discussion to what we were covering in our religion class. On more than one occasion, there was no connection. I, of course, being the annoying fat young white future injineer said so. For this I usually got a zero, since they wanted some verbal “barbara streisand” where one attempted to link the “redemptive power of confession” to the “rule on fasting and abstinence”. There was no connection but they wanted the student to try and justify one. Argh! Points off for spelling, grammar, and penmanship. Luckily, this nonsense was for “extra credit”. Funny point, we had one guy who’s family didn’t have a tv. He’d come to school and ask all about the show. Darned if he didn’t score the extra credit at least a third of the time. Wonder if he grew up to be a lawyer, politician, or a bureaucrat?
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I remember many a pleasant evening watching the old goat on my parent’s black and white Philco. I actually found him charming and pleasant to listen to (kind of an early version Robert Schuler without all the glitz)
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