FROM THE PASTOR'S DESK:
From the Pastor’s Desk:
The pet blessing at St. Bartholomew’s went very well: there were around 21 dogs, and one family brought 4 cats, a salamander, and a hamster! Several of the pets didn’t like the holy water sprinkling, but the salamander loved the water with an amphibian like joy! There was a turkey vulture soaring overhead before the blessing, but it was out of range (had I had access to a water cannon, it too would have been blessed) to get sprinkled.
Please note, for the next two weeks, weekday Masses will only be on Thursdays and Fridays (Oct. 8, 9, 15, 16), no Masses on Tuesdays and Wednesdays. There will be Eucharistic Adoration at Notre Dame on Tuesdays and Wednesdays, as usual. I try to take some time away each October- please say a prayer for me, I will be praying for you!
There is now a “pierogi hotline” at St. Bartholomew Church! Just call St. Bart’s at (724) 962-7130, and when the phone answers (you will hear Church bells ringing), just press 8, and you will hear instructions, then you can leave your order information! Pierogi hotline first responders will return your call.
There was an insert in the bulletin last weekend with the year end financial reports of both parishes- the insert is double sided. Thank you for your generosity!
On September 24, Archbishop Fulton Sheen was beatified in St. Louis, becoming the first ever American born Bishop to be declared “Blessed!” As we begin October, which is Respect Life Month, here are just some of the people that Archbishop Sheen helped to convert to Catholicism. Kevin Knight and Zelda Caldwell wrote the following on Sept. 21, 2026, in the National Catholic Register. Here is the article:
7 Notable Catholics Converted by Fulton Sheen: Fulton Sheen has been dubbed a ‘Convert Maker.’
1) Clare Boothe Luce: Clare Boothe Luce was undoubtedly the most prominent Catholic convert associated with Archbishop Fulton Sheen. Luce, at the age of 32, married Henry Luce, publisher of Time and Fortune magazines, and later served two terms in Congress. Known for her glamorous lifestyle and ruthless ambition, she was a frequent subject on the gossip pages before her providential meeting with then-Msgr. Sheen, who was generating millions of listeners to his radio program, The Catholic Hour.
In his memoir, Treasure in Clay, he recalls the evening he invited Congresswoman Luce to dinner.
When the subject turned to religion, Luce, whose only child had recently been killed in a car accident, asked the priest why a good God would take her daughter.
“I answered, ‘In order that through that sorrow, you might be here now starting instructions to know Christ and His Church,’” he said.
Luce then received instruction from Sheen for five months before she was received into the Catholic Church at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City in 1946.
Archbishop Sheen later wrote of Luce, “Never in my life have I been privileged to instruct anyone who was as brilliant and who was so scintillating in conversation as Mrs. Luce. She had a mind like a rapier.”
2) Henry Ford II: Like many converts of his day, Henry Ford II came into the Church because he wanted to marry a Catholic. According to the account in Thomas C. Reeves’ biography, America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Fulton J. Sheen, Ford’s grandfather, Henry Ford I, had considered disinheriting his grandson for marrying Anne McDonnell, a member of a prominent New York Irish-Catholic family.
In the end, though, in 1940, then-Msgr. Sheen presided over the wedding, and the elder Ford danced with the bride. Reeves notes that the couple received more than $1 million in wedding presents, as well as a blessing from Pope Pius XII.
3) Horace Mann: Fulton Sheen offered to give personal instruction in the Catholic faith to anyone who asked, offering private and group “convert classes.” He sometimes, however, sparked conversions simply by appearing on the radio or television.
According to Reeves’ biography, one of Archbishop Sheen’s better-known and least likely converts was Horace Mann, a campaign manager for Herbert Hoover who converted to Catholicism after listening to The Catholic Hour.
“This was especially newsworthy because Mann had been charged with anti-Catholic activity in the South during the Republican effort to defeat Catholic Al Smith,” Reeves writes. Mann had been accused of engaging in a smear campaign against Smith, who would lose by a landslide in the 1928 election.
Archbishop Sheen later provided personal instruction for Mann and his wife, who also converted, according to Reeves.
4) Fritz Kreisler: In his memoir, Treasure in Clay, Archbishop Sheen recalls the “beautiful story” of the reversion of Fritz Kreisler, the Austrian-born, American violinist and composer, who was raised in a mixed Jewish-Christian family, baptized in 1887 at age 12 and embraced the faith 60 years later.
Archbishop Sheen recalls receiving a letter from a stranger who asked him to go see her uncle to console him after his wife had died by suicide a short time before. When he arrived at the Manhattan address only to discover that nobody was home, he asked the elevator man who lived in the neighboring apartment.
Informed that it was Kreisler, the famous violin virtuoso, the priest took the opportunity to evangelize. “I rang the bell, introduced myself to Fritz and Mrs. Kreisler, and after a short conversation, asked them if they would like to take instructions for the Church,” he recalled.
“Fritz Kreisler was one of the finest and noblest men I ever met in my entire life. When I would quote a text from the Old Testament, he would read it in Hebrew; when I would quote a text from the New Testament, Fritz would read it in Greek,” he wrote.
In 1947, the Kreislers had their marriage convalidated. Bishop Fulton Sheen would later convince Kreisler — after much persuading, as it offended his artistic sensibilities — to change his Vienna March into a waltz to be used as the theme song for Sheen’s television show, Life Is Worth Living.
Communists-Turned-Catholics: Sheen, as his biographer Reeves writes, was known for finding converts to the Catholic faith among members of the Communist Party.
One of his better-known reversions was 5) Louis Budenz, who was raised in a Catholic family but in 1935 had abandoned his faith and joined the Communist Party of the United States of America. In 1937, Father Sheen extended a dinner invitation to Budenz, who, as managing editor of the Daily Worker, had written an article challenging the priest’s criticism of communism.
That evening, Budenz recalled being bowled over by his conversation with Msgr. Sheen: “Never has my soul been swept by love and reverence as it was that April evening.”
It would, however, take eight years for Budenz to reach out to the priest to tell him he wanted to return to the Church, Reeves writes. With Msgr. Sheen’s help, he got a job as an assistant professor of economics at the University of Notre Dame. Budenz later became an important witness during FBI and congressional investigations into communist activities.
6) Bella Dodd, a New York attorney and member of the Communist Party USA, was another Sheen pupil. After testifying before the House Committee on Un-American Activities, Sen. Howard McGrath, D-Rhode Island, challenged her to meet Fulton Sheen.
Soon after the meeting, which took place at Msgr. Sheen’s home, during a lull in the conversation, he told her she looked unhappy and invited her to the chapel to pray.
“While we knelt, silently she began to cry. She was touched by grace,” he wrote in Treasure in Clay. “Later on, I instructed her and received her into the Church. With Marx behind her, she began teaching law first in Texas and later at St. John’s University in Brooklyn.”
7) Gertrude Algase, a high-powered literary agent in New York, was one of Venerable Sheen’s better-known converts from Judaism. After receiving instruction from him and becoming Catholic, Algase would represent Auxiliary Bishop Sheen, as well as Cardinal Francis Spellman. Other clients included President John F. Kennedy and historians Charles and Mary Beard.
Algase would later help establish the Alfred E. Smith Memorial Dinner, which raises money for charitable causes in the Archdiocese of New York. Shortly before her death at the age of 60 in 1962, she had completed a Catholic Youth Encyclopedia and a history of the Catholic Church. Cardinal Spellman presided over her funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Saint Bruno, Priest, who, along with six companions, founded the Carthusian Order in 1084 in the secluded Chartreuse desert valley, pray for us. Father Miller