What People are Commenting
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Distractive Irrelevancy, Sheen & Fr. DePauw
Sheen Embraced Chardin
Regrettably, Fulton Sheen patently did "embrace" Teilhard de Chardin's 'evolutionary' theology; the Catholic Church’s Holy Office "formally condemned" Pierre Teilhard de Chardin’s works on June 30, 1962.
Please read this article: "Fulton Sheen's embrace of Teilhard de Chardin's 'evolutionary' theology," by Hugh Owen, founder of the Kolbe Center
L.W.
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Promoting Teilhard de Chardin
Here is a video showing things you have printed on your site in various places, especially your Progressivist Documents. That is, that Archbishop Fulton Sheen was a progressivist and Vatican II devotee. After Vatican II, he promoted many wrong things, mixing truth with error. He championed Teilhard de Chardin and ecumenism even before Vatican II. That says everything about why the Vatican is beatifying him...
No canonical process for this beatification, like JPII, Paul VI, etc.
The video mentions Tradition in Action (at 1:13 ) , giving you credit for digging up material in your research. Glad to see that.
He really was a showman, not a saint. And liberal, which explains his popularity in America, suffering from Americanism.
By the way, your work by Msgr. DeLassus in your Library should be printed so Americans cans see how America has always had tolerance for false religions.
As Hansen notes, he knew which way the wind was blowing and always followed the “party line.” The party ultimately is progressivism.
B.R.
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Double Irony
Salve Maria!
All the fuss about Archbishop Sheen brought to my wife's mind this ironic story. When she was a senior in high school, 1971-72, the religious sisters who taught in her school, St. Joseph's Academy in Des Moines, required her class to read a book by Chardin.
My mother-in-law, who was no fool, knew that Chardin was on the list of forbidden books and requested that my wife be allowed to read another book. Fine, said the sisters. So Jean ended up reading a book by Archbishop Sheen... who it turns out was a great defender of Chardin!
Another irony: The book by Archbishop Sheen in which I found that damning endorsement of Chardin, Footprints in a Darkened Forest, was all the time sitting in my mother-in-law's basement, along with several thousand other books. (No blame at all to my wonderful, deceased mother-in-law; how many books can a woman with nine children read?)
I have seen excuses made for Archbishop Sheen's endorsement of Chardin, that things were so confused after the Council, that it was easy to be misled. However, I reread the Chardin endorsement yesterday. How could the archbishop NOT have noticed that Chardin's beliefs contradicted the Faith?
Patrick O’Brien
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Heroic Fr. Gommar DePauw
Regarding comments by "L.S." posted earlier this week concerning, Fr. DePauw, I was privileged to be one of his "grass roots flock on Long Island" mentioned in TIA's glowing obituary of this priest written some 20 years ago. My family, multiple generations, and I, enjoyed this privilege for 32 years, from the day we discovered his Ave Maria Chapel up until his very last public Mass, said a few days before his passing. He said that Mass for his flock in a wheelchair and in great physical pain. He had been ailing for several years prior, yet never missed Sunday Mass at the Chapel, except for several hospital stays.
Regarding Father's "love, kindness and joy," as the TIA obituary notes, he gave up "a brilliant ecclesiastical career," in part to bring ordinary people, here on Long Island and throughout the tri-state area, the Traditional Latin Mass and the other traditional doctrine, worship and discipline of the Roman Catholic Church for all who wanted these treasures of our Faith and to prevent them from falling into oblivion. He dedicated substantial amounts of his own money to this work besides.
It's true, Father probably didn't have a lot of "peace," as he was constantly attacked and misrepresented for doing this heroic pastoral work from almost every quarter, including by "ecclesiastics" who might have evidenced more charity. However, he did have obvious "joy" in doing the Lord's work.
He always evidenced Priestly Dignity and never followed the shallow "joy" or familiarity of the modern "Father Bob," or "just call me Bob" demeanor. Yet, he was not above paying for the funeral and burial of a destitute parishioner with no family out of his personal funds and similar acts of kindness.
Regarding uncharitable ecclesiastics, as Father notes in a 1967 publication of his Catholic Traditionalist Movement, their attacks invariably came down to personal criticism of him, rather than ever discussing or attacking his actual positions.
I can't comment on Fr. DePauw's conduct of seminary classes, however his sermons, speeches and preaching, a small sample of which is available on the internet, were certainly never boring; they were always on-point, edifying, logical and brilliant and they are ever more on point and relevant today: some of them recorded as long as 60 years ago.
As a matter of fact, many regular parishioners at Ave Maria Chapel, located on traffic clogged Long Island, hailed from Connecticut, New Jersey, upstate New York, and New York City, and braved the traffic and tolls or long train rides, Sunday after Sunday for years or decades, in part to hear Father's sermons. I never heard anyone describe them as 'boring.' After years of having heard those sermons, I consider myself and my family members and friends well grounded in the Faith.
Father DePauw was not from Long Island, nor even from the USA. It is nothing short of a miracle that despite all the places in the world, God placed this "heroic priest and warier" almost literally our back yard at the time of greatest need. As a result, we who wanted these things were never without the Church's Traditional Faith, Teachings, Sacraments or Mass.
Father DePauw's favorite quote was one he ascribed to St. Athanasius: "If the whole world goes against the Truth, then Athanasius must go against the whole world." In his day, Athanasius was probably described as "off," or worse by many.
In better times, a cause for Sainthood would be opened for faithful priests such as Fr. DePauw.
Sincerely,
E.B.
Posted September 29, 2026
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The opinions expressed in this section - What People Are Commenting - do not necessarily express those of TIA
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Re: Sarabaites, Refutation Page & Defeatist Flüe
Well done on discerning and deflecting distractive irrelevancy.
J.R.