On Thursday, I attended the beatification liturgy for Bishop Fulton Sheen with some family members.
My wife Carol is the first cousin twice removed from the Blessed Fulton Sheen. That means that Bishop Sheen, who died in 1979, was the first cousin of my wife’s grandmother, Veronica Fulton Reeves. Vera and Bishop Sheen, whose actual name at birth was Peter John Sheen, both grew up in El Paso, Illinois, a small town of about 2,500 people about 26 miles north of Bloomington, Illinois.
I actually met Bishop Sheen when I was a boy. My father Daniel P. Lydon was the coordinator of Chicago’s St. Patrick’s Day Parade and he convinced Bishop Sheen to come to the Parade in the middle 1970’s. I think it must have been 1974. I was thirteen years old then. I remember meeting Bishop Sheen very distinctly.
My darling sister, Patricia Delia Lydon, contacted the committee running the ceremony and got some tickets for the family section, right up front in the twelfth row.
It was an amazing ceremony. A full mass celebrated to the Papal Nuncio. There was a procession of hundreds of seminarians and over 1,000 priets and bishops.
It was a such a happy event. I am so glad I got to go. Here are some photos.
