Living The Worthy Life- The Devil Is In The Details

I am a post World War II baby boom, Korean War era, child of television.  My parents were children of the radio. My early life revolved around the television set in our living room.  Every Tuesday night I would watch Bishop Sheen. Every Saturday I would watch westerns and cartoons. However no offense to Hopalong Cassidy or William Body, my favorite person on TV was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.  Growing up in this culture, I take great pride in trying to relay the messages of that day which will impact us today. 

First let us look at the Du Mont Television Network itself.  It was a company owned by Allen B. DuMont Laboratories. He manufactured television equipment and television set manufacturer began their broadcast operations on June 28, 1942.  Because of FCC requirements during World War II, Du Mont did not start back up until 1946. One of the DuMont Network's biggest hits of the 1950s, Life is Worth Living, received Nielsen ratings of up to 11.1, attracting more than 10 million viewers. Sheen's one-man program – in which he discussed philosophy, psychology and other fields of thought from a Christian perspective – was the most widely viewed religious series in the history of television. 169 local television stations aired Life, and for three years the program competed successfully against NBC's popular The Milton Berle Show. The ABC and CBS programs which aired in the same timeslot were canceled when asked about this Bishop Sheen smiled and said that they both had the same boss- they both work for the Sky Chief.

Second, with the power of the Word behind, Bishop Sheen took on some of the most interesting topics of his day head on and with reckless abandon.  One of the constant themes of his program on its run on Du Mont was Communism. A common subject of Bishop Sheen’s talks was about the evils of communism, and one of his shows on this topic in early 1953 was long remembered because of an eerie coincidence. Perhaps the best example of Sheen’s mystical foresight took place on February 21, 1953. In front of a large live television audience which, at that time, rivaled the top-rated Milton Berle Show, Sheen presented an episode of his show, Life is Worth Living, entitled “The Death of Stalin.” I wish I could find footage of this particular episode, but it does not appear to exist anywhere online. In this program, Sheen wove an elaborate comparison using the words of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar to condemn the leaders of the Soviet Union. Delivering Marc Antony's famous speech, Sheen replaced the names of the Roman characters with those of Soviet high officials. In place of Caesar, Sheen named Soviet premier, Joseph Stalin: “And now Malenkov speaks: ‘Friends, Soviets, countrymen, lend me your ears; I come to bury Stalin, not to praise him.’”  At the climax of his soliloquy, Sheen fulminated:

“Stalin must one day meet his judgment!” On March 1, about a week later, Stalin suffered a stroke. By March 5, he was dead.

Now, this could be chalked up to an odd consequence but it was not the only thing on the subject that he foretold.  On the last show of the first season, the season he won his Emmy Award, he told of the story that all civilizations will die yet he added, “President Lincoln said that America will not be attacked from outside but from within.”  He then went on to call communists scavengers living off the dead. What could this possibly have to do with today?

There was a Hanna Baberra Cartoon Character from the Quick Draw McGraw Show, his name was Snagglepuss.  His favorite line was, “Exit stage left.” Today this is what is happening to the politics in the United States.  Exit stage left. The political center of both parties has gone to the extreme. Today many have adopted the policies of New Green Deal and would like to replace capitalism with communism. As we are asked by our political leaders to accept this new age idea as something that is true and good.  

Third, all one has to do it look at how the young and many other Americans are now being attracted to the ideas of communism- end of capitalism,  free college, free medical care, free housing, guaranteed jobs. Sounds too good to be true? Maybe the reason is because it is too good to be true. Well ask Bishop Sheen.  “The very fact that in World War II we chose to fight in alliance with one form of totalitarianism against the other two forms, though all were intrinsically wicked, proves not only the basic sympathy between Western materialism and communism but also the grave mistake of trying to drive the Devil out with Beelzebub.” Here we see that the devil is in the details. You can not fight or protect yourself from one form of  totalitarianism by adopting another form. Trying to replace G in God with the Government will lead to no God in your life. This is exactly what the Devil wants. He wants us to replace our freedom with enslavement and choice with no choice. You see he has made the choice for us already and he can not have you choose against him.  

During the life of the show, Bishop Sheen spoke before a live audience of 1100 people and three cameras.  There was no cue cards, laugh track, notes, or script. The only prop was one piece of chalk and blackboard. In his own words, Bishop Sheen explained that the Old Testament was like the Old Testament and television is like the New Testament. 

Is America ready to listen one more time to the evils of Communism? Did Archbishop Fulton Sheen prophesy about the condition of (many parts of) our Church today?

“[Satan] will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the [Catholic] Church … It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content.”We are living in the days of the Apocalypse, the last days of our era. The two great forces – the Mystical Body of Christ and the Mystical Body of the anti-Christ – are beginning to draw battle lines for the catastrophic contest. The False prophet will have a religion without a cross. A religion without a world to come. A religion to destroy religions. There will be a counterfeit Church.

Christ’s Church the Catholic Church will be one; and the false Prophet will create the other. The False Church will be worldly, ecumenical, and global. It will be a loose federation of churches and religions, forming some type of global association.

A world parliament of Churches. It will be emptied of all Divine content, it will be the mystical body of the anti-christ. The Mystical Body on earth today will have its Judas Iscariot, and he will be the false prophet. Satan will recruit him from our Bishops. The Antichrist will not be so called; otherwise he would have no followers. He will not wear red tights, nor vomit sulphur, nor carry a trident nor wave an arrowed tail as Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the Devil convince men that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am Who am,” and the Devil as “I am who am not.” 

Nowhere in Sacred Scripture do we find warrant for the popular myth of the Devil as a buffoon who is dressed like the first “red.” Rather is he described as an angel fallen from heaven, as “the Prince of this world,” whose business it is to tell us that there is no other world. His logic is simple: if there is no heaven there is no hell; if there is no hell, then there is no sin; if there is no sin, then there is no judge, and if there is no judgment then evil is good and good is evil. But above all these descriptions, Our Lord tells us that he will be so much like Himself that he would deceive even the elect–and certainly no devil ever seen in picture books could deceive even the elect. How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion?

The pre-Communist Russian belief is that he will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves … The third temptation in which Satan asked Christ to adore him and all the kingdoms of the world would be His, will become the temptation to have a new religion without a Cross, a liturgy without a world to come, a religion to destroy a religion, or a politics which is a religion–one that renders unto Caesar even the things that are God’s.

In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one: he will not believe in God. Because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect. He will set up a counterchurch which will be the ape of the Church, because he, the Devil, is the ape of God. It will have all the notes and characteristics of the Church, but in reverse and emptied of its divine content. It will be a mystical body of the Antichrist that will in all externals resemble the mystical body of Christ … But the twentieth century will join the counterchurch because it claims to be infallible when its visible head speaks... from Moscow on the subject of economics and politics, and as chief shepherd of world communism.

(Fulton J. Sheen, Communism and the Conscience of the West [Bobbs-Merril Company, Indianapolis, 1948], pp. 24-25)

America listen to the words of Bishop Sheen- America will see the pre-communist belief is that he will come disguised as the great humanitarian. 

Stand up and be ready.