The ‘Microphone of God’

The 20th century brought forth Fulton Sheen (1895-1979), a priest and later archbishop, who for a period of 30 years reached an audience of an estimated 30 million Americans in his programmes, on radio, The Catholic Hour, and on prime-time television, Life is Worth Living.

His philosophy was: “If you want people to stay as they are, tell them what they want to hear. If you want to improve them, tell them what they should know.” It put no one off, it seems.

In the 21st century, thanks to advances in technology, those who missed out can listen to and view Sheen’s deliveries on MP3 libraries and videos on the Internet.

Archbishop Sheen, hailed as the first Catholic TV evangelist and often referred to as “the microphone of God”, distinguished between teaching and preaching. The first was directed to an audience from many perspectives not necessarily having faith, the second to believers who more or less shared a common level of faith.

Borders, however, were crossed when on one Good Friday Sheen delivered his homily, “The Seven Last Words”, in St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City. Because thousands were left outside, the homily was broadcast via loudspeaker. Even traffic in Fifth Avenue stopped to accommodate the throngs.

In his biography of Archbishop Sheen, Rev Timothy Sherwood looks closely at what made him such a popular and respected preacher. He notes that Sheen based himself on “pulpit, audience and truth”, a variation of Aristotle and Cicero’s message, speaker and audience formulation. From this flows Invention, Organisation, Style, Delivery and Memory (components of Logos).

Sheen would start with Invention, dealing prayerfully with the location and creation of ideas and material for speech. He would always prepare in the presence of the Blessed Sacrament, speaking out aloud from memory. Noonan relates that Sheen even practiced by addressing telephone poles and trees as he walked along at 5am to the orphanage where he was chaplain.

Under the heading of Organisation, Sherwood explains, Sheen would consider “the structure and flow of argumentation, his unity of thought and interwoven arguments enabled his hearers or viewers to easily follow and assimilate his thought”.

“His careful use of vivid figures of speech enabled him to connect with his hearers […] His Style, his ‘flare’was ‘keyed to the ear’, as he captured the imagination of the hearer.”

On Delivery, one contemporary of Sheen remarked that his unique way of speaking was “very nearly poetry”.

Regarding Memory, Sheen believed “you should never preach from a manuscript, but rather know your material inside and out so that you could preach extemporaneously”. In saying this he became an exception to Cardinal Fénélon’s rule that the preacher must always have “book in hand”.

Sheen himself summarised his Delivery: “Talk naturally, plead vehemently, whisper confidentially, appeal plaintively, proclaim distinctly, and pray continually.”

The preaching of Sheen, like that of Chrysostom, Augustine, Fénelon and Newman—all of whom have featured in this series—raises the bar for preachers; the higher the bar, the greater the motivation, and greater still the challenges, the most demanding being intense homily/sermon preparation—in exegesis, contemplation and attention to communicative skills, while preserving individuality.

Skills are sometimes seen as being of secondary importance. Our five preachers would be the first to highlight divine inspiration and grace, yet so passionate were they about connecting with their listeners and carrying them through to the conclusion that they would not overlook the smallest practical detail to ensure this.

The short profiles in this series do not answer all our questions about the preachers selected, but arouse our interest in further exploration, also of the many other exemplary preachers not mentioned—those today and down the ages.

But why leave out St Paul and St Peter and, of course, the master preacher Jesus Christ? I leave these profiles for another telling.