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I once had a church history professor who loved counter-factual thought exercises. A hypothetical question he asked us to ponder was the following: What if Fulton Sheen had been named Archbishop of New York?
Sheen, of course, was the 1950s-era TV bishop who, at the height of his fame, commanded an audience estimated at 30 million. In 1952, his show “Life is Worth Living” beat Lucille Ball and Edward R. Murrow for an Emmy award. The point of the question was to consider what the results might have been if the American church’s most gifted natural communicator – in effect, the Catholic Billy Graham – had also been given the country’s most important ecclesiastical post.
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Sheen, of course, was the 1950s-era TV bishop who, at the height of his fame, commanded an audience estimated at 30 million. In 1952, his show “Life is Worth Living” beat Lucille Ball and Edward R. Murrow for an Emmy award. The point of the question was to consider what the results might have been if the American church’s most gifted natural communicator – in effect, the Catholic Billy Graham – had also been given the country’s most important ecclesiastical post.
More…