Ahead of the beatification of Archbishop Sheen in St. Louis next week, The Good Newsroom’s Senior Editor Steven Schwankert spoke with The Catholic Channel and Sheen beatification Mass pre-show host Katie McGrady via Zoom about Sheen’s legacy, his influence on Catholic broadcasting, and the moment during the St. Louis event when she expects to cry.  

The Good Newsroom (TGN): When you first became interested in broadcasting, did you have an awareness of Archbishop Sheen? What did you know about him? Had you heard any of his programming? 

Katie Prejean McGrady (KPM): When I was in fourth grade, my grandmother became Catholic. I’d spend a few weeks every year with my grandparents in Pineville, La., and we went to the Rapides Parish Library, where she walked up to the front desk and asked, “Do you have anything Catholic?” This is the Bible Belt of Louisiana, so they had about two things, and one of them was a collection of VHS tapes of Fulton Sheen. He became the soundtrack to my summer. I’d come in and out of the living room, and she’d just have these tapes playing. That was my first exposure as a nine- or 10-year-old kid. 

Then in college, I had a spiritual director who pointed me to what’s become my favorite Fulton Sheen book, “The Divine Romance.” I was studying theology, and you get very in the weeds. He told me Sheen wrote it when he was a professor of theology at Catholic University of America, about God’s love, which of course became the central theme of everything Sheen said. That’s how he ended every broadcast: “God loves you.” That book changed my life. I don’t say that lightly. There’s a small stack of books I keep to give away: “Theology for Beginners” by Frank Sheed and “The Divine Romance” by Fulton Sheen. That was my standard graduation gift when I taught high school, and for my youth group kids. So, I always knew he existed. When I entered Catholic media and broadcasting, he became what we’d call a “saintly friend.” 

TGN: How do you see the Catholic broadcasting landscape now, and how did Fulton Sheen help shape it? If he were alive today, where would he fit into it? 

KPM: He was up against Milton Berle. They had the same time slot: Uncle Miltie and, as people liked to say, “Uncle Fultie.” The fact that his show was more popular, that he won the Emmy over Lucille Ball at the height of “I Love Lucy,” an archbishop in a cape with piercing eyes and an Irish lilt beating that, says everything about what people were hungry for. Building up to the beatification, I’ve heard a lot of “we could never do that today.” I actually think you could do more of it today. You could put a bishop on primetime TV and people would watch. He’d probably get debated more than Sheen ever was, and questioned more. I think of Bishop Barron’s “Catholicism” series on PBS, with hugely successful ratings, because there was a hunger. I think of my own show on the Catholic Channel on SiriusXM, which has so much content available, and yet we’ve stuck around for 20 years because people want not just comfort but companionship on this journey of faith. 

Sheen set all of us up for that by being excellent, diligent, and warm. There are so many stories of him walking into the studio knowing people’s names, knowing about their kids, checking in on how things were going. Many people on his crew converted because they thought, “This Catholic guy in the cape gets it, and gets me.” 

TGN: If Fulton Sheen were alive today, where would he fit in Catholic media today? 

KPM: I think he’d be everywhere. He’d be on YouTube, which shows my age, that I say “the YouTube.” He’d have the SiriusXM show, he’d be a cable news commentator, and he’d have movies in theaters the way Bishop Barron has done with some of his film projects. He’d be a dynamo on social media, going viral, the way Cardinal [Timothy] Dolan and other bishops post things that are relevant to the moment. He’d travel and speak at every conference, even ones some people turn their nose up at, and he’d probably still do the parish mission at St. Agnes and the Seven Last Words at St. Patrick’s on Good Friday. He’d be everywhere, the way he was then. 

TGN: The Good Newsroom will be in St. Louis covering the beatification Mass. What can we expect from the pre-Mass show, which you are hosting?  

KPM: We could just open the doors at noon and tell everyone to find a seat, but we have to take a football stadium and transform it into a place of worship and prayer. What better way than to celebrate the life of Fulton Sheen, who can speak for himself? 

The doors open at 8 a.m., and people can start coming into the dome around 8:30 to 9 a.m. We’ll have a concert kickoff around 9:30 to 9:40 with music to welcome everyone, not laser lights and a smoke show, just Catholic music. We’ll pray the World Mission Rosary. From there, we’ve got a series of talks: Sister Josephine Garrett speaking on prayer, Cardinal Dolan on Mary and the Eucharist, and others reflecting on Sheen and the media, drawing on their own experience in Catholic and secular media and Hollywood. We’ve got a ton of Fulton Sheen clips, major credit to Sister Jude Andrew of the Sisters of Mary, Mother of the Eucharist, who’s been our program director. Since we have thousands of hours of Sheen’s video and audio, she’s spent weeks combing through it for the best gems, which will act as our transitions and movement through the morning. 

The hope is that by the time Mass begins at 2 p.m., essentially a papal liturgy without the pope, since this is a Vatican event, with a beatification rite, a reading of the biography, and a procession of the relic, people will have had their hearts prepared. 

TGN: Is there a particular moment of the beatification to which you’re looking forward?  

KPM: The relic will be carried by the boy who received the miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession, James Fulton Engstrom, who was born with no heartbeat and no signs of life and came back at the 61st minute, which is notable because Fulton Sheen loved making a 60-minute holy hour. I’ll be in the SiriusXM booth calling the Mass as we air it, having been on stage all morning, and I’ll get a view of James Fulton walking in with the relic. That’s the moment I think I’ll finally cry. 

This interview has been edited for length and content.

Listen to The Katie McGrady Show on SiriusXM’s The Catholic Channel, Ch. 129. Stay with The Good Newsroom for full coverage of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s beatification.