Blessed Fulton Sheen, a Modern Evangelist for Christ

JASON GRAY

The executive director of the Fulton Sheen Center uses the news of Sheen’s immanent beatification as an opportunity to reflect on some lesser known biographical details. Sheen possessed both humility and a persistent dedication to the Blessed Sacrament: “Throughout sixty years of priesthood, he devoted more than 21,000 hours of devoted prayer to Jesus Christ.”

The First Things office is near St. Agnes Church, where Sheen hosted his television shows and radio broadcasts. When he preached there, the street would close down as crowds spilled out of the church.

For more: Early last year, Mark Bauerlein interviewed the author of a biography of Sheen for the Conversations podcast: “Fulton Sheen: Master Evangelist.”

The Once and Future Movement

DALE COULTER

It’s out! The very first edition of The Protestant Mind, First Things’ latest topical newsletter, authored by Dale Coulter, is now available.

Coulter provides a brilliant manifesto of sorts, arguing for the uniqueness of the Protestant movement’s American expression and analyzing the contested prophetic role within that expression. Coulter, an ordained minister in the Church of God (Cleveland, Tennessee), turns away, as do most American Protestants, from the ecclesial self-conception of the European Reformers. Rather, “Protestantism is a movement. Neither the stature of Luther nor the political power of Protestant princes could hold the Reformers together in a single church. ‘Twas ever thus. Nowhere is this view of Protestantism more apparent than in the American experiment, in which protest and reform remained at the center.”

To read the post, click above. To subscribe to The Protestant Mind, click here.

Visiting an Armenian Archbishop in Prison

JOEL VELDKAMP

Christian Armenia has suffered a series of losses as Turkey and Azerbaijan press in upon it. Amidst this pressure, the Armenian state has turned against the historic Armenian Apostolic Church which, in turn, has spoken out against the government. The jailing of bishops recalls Armenia’s recent, Soviet past.

“The Armenian Church has openly challenged the prime minister’s agenda. In May 2024, the Armenian government unilaterally conceded some territories in Tavush province, where Archbishop Bagrat has his diocese, to Azerbaijan. The archbishop responded by organizing a protest march from Tavush to Yerevan. This march grew into a political movement that named the archbishop a candidate for prime minister. (The Catholicos granted him leave from his ecclesiastical duties.) . . .

Westerners may balk at the thought of archbishops running for prime minister, or a Church trying to shape foreign policy. For the Armenian clergymen we have spoken to—both behind bars and not—there is no contradiction. They are shepherds defending their endangered flock. ‘The church cannot stand by and watch while this happens,’ the archbishop told us. ‘That’s why I’m in here.’”

For further reading: Last August, Mark Movsesian wrote about the Trump administration and “Armenia and Azerbaijan’s Uncertain Peace.”