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God's World and Our Place in It
God and the world explained by Bishop Sheen, the T.V. personality who captivated the nation and won countless converts. In the 1950s, Fulton J. Sheen was one of the most popular television personalities in America, captivating millions of prime-time viewers weekly with enlightening talks on the essentials of Christianity and the moral life. Relying on the same wise, lucid explanations that won the hearts of so many viewers, Archbishop Sheen here demonstrates that Christianity makes good sense even to persons with no religious background. Indeed, argues Sheen, Christianity alone is able to explain the goodness we encounter in the universe and the evil; it alone makes sense of our impulses to love and to sacrifice and our repeated failures to do so. Along the way, Bishop Sheen shows you (among countless other things):
- GenresCatholicPhilosophy
176 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 2003
About the author
Fulton J. Sheen
482 books774 followersFulton John Sheen was an American bishop of the Catholic Church known for his preaching and especially his work on television and radio. Ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in Illinois, in 1919, Sheen quickly became a renowned theologian, earning the Cardinal Mercier Prize for International Philosophy in 1923. He went on to teach theology and philosophy at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C. and served as a parish priest before he was appointed auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York in 1951. He held this position until 1966 when he was made bishop of the Diocese of Rochester in New York. He resigned as bishop of Rochester in 1969 as his 75th birthday approached and was made archbishop of the titular see of Newport, Wales.
For 20 years as "Father Sheen", later monsignor, he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour on NBC (1930–1950) before he moved to television and presented Life Is Worth Living (1952–1957). Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program (1961–1968) with a format that was very similar to that of the earlier Life Is Worth Living show. For that work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Starting in 2009, his shows were being re-broadcast on the EWTN and the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Church Channel cable networks. His contribution to televised preaching resulted in Sheen often being called one of the first televangelists.
The cause for his canonization was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of "heroic virtues," a major step towards beatification, and he is now referred to as venerable. On July 5, 2019, Pope Francis approved a reputed miracle that occurred through the intercession of Sheen, clearing the way for his beatification. Sheen was scheduled to be beatified in Peoria on December 21, 2019, but his beatification was postponed after Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester expressed concern that Sheen's handling of a 1963 sexual misconduct case against a priest might be cited unfavorably in a forthcoming report from the New York Attorney General. The Diocese of Peoria countered that Sheen's handling of the case had already been "thoroughly examined" and "exonerated" and that Sheen had "never put children in harm's way".
For 20 years as "Father Sheen", later monsignor, he hosted the night-time radio program The Catholic Hour on NBC (1930–1950) before he moved to television and presented Life Is Worth Living (1952–1957). Sheen's final presenting role was on the syndicated The Fulton Sheen Program (1961–1968) with a format that was very similar to that of the earlier Life Is Worth Living show. For that work, Sheen twice won an Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality, and was featured on the cover of Time magazine. Starting in 2009, his shows were being re-broadcast on the EWTN and the Trinity Broadcasting Network's Church Channel cable networks. His contribution to televised preaching resulted in Sheen often being called one of the first televangelists.
The cause for his canonization was officially opened in 2002. In June 2012, Pope Benedict XVI officially recognized a decree from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints stating that he lived a life of "heroic virtues," a major step towards beatification, and he is now referred to as venerable. On July 5, 2019, Pope Francis approved a reputed miracle that occurred through the intercession of Sheen, clearing the way for his beatification. Sheen was scheduled to be beatified in Peoria on December 21, 2019, but his beatification was postponed after Bishop Salvatore Matano of Rochester expressed concern that Sheen's handling of a 1963 sexual misconduct case against a priest might be cited unfavorably in a forthcoming report from the New York Attorney General. The Diocese of Peoria countered that Sheen's handling of the case had already been "thoroughly examined" and "exonerated" and that Sheen had "never put children in harm's way".
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Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews
April 5, 2025
“THE TIME IS OUT OF JOINT.”
Prince Hamlet
Bishop Fulton Sheen told many a good tale back in the 50’s, on our snowy B&W TV set, about how we’d all lost our core values of goodness and decency and reverence for God. Can you imagine? Even in the Fifties!
I feared his proud demeanour, and I bristled at the moral bit he put into my mouth and the heavy saddle he threw onto my back. He was uncool like my parents! Yet his was one of the first books I got on Kindle.
We hear a lot these days about our era having gone badly askew. Is there some truth to that? And can we go back to those decent days again, somehow?
To me the way back exists, but in my own case I have long been a traveller in regions of my soul where there are no fixed demarcations. Like Alan Watts, I found the Wisdom of Insecurity throughout my life to be inordinately discomfiting, but essential to my personal growth.
And all our perceptions about our disjointed times could in fact be indicative of the extent to which we have suffered and GROWN through the pain of personal maturing within the sphere of insecurity.
Perhaps our high comfort level has precluded that growth?
For myself, at a point starting around 1985, I found I had to more and more forego the restrictive though comforting fold of discrete social niceties, located in the polite little village of Urban Myth, and travel to the unsheltered badlands of the Absurd where my Quest told me to go - OUTSIDE that convenient Fold and into a New, starkly remote Postmodernist World.
Postmodernism is a Reversal. It’s upsetting. You must eschew Happy Endings there.
But - “oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as you travel at Warp Speed, careening through a Bizarro World.
It’s all right there in your books. Pick up The Stranger, by Camus, for starters and see where that takes you. Oh, and you don’t have to forego believing in what the members of Bishop Fulton Sheen’s generation called the Eternal Verities...
You’ll find the Verities will prove an awkward and ungainly fit into your overhead luggage compartment, but with a wing and a prayer you’ll settle down into your seat belt as the wild blue yonder gapes open before you like the Void - and your Quest will begin!
You open your Camus novel as the jet engines roar to life...
And many, many years from now - elderly and a bit decrepit like me - you’ll think back to that book, that flight, that Quest, and you’ll see that while all your friends and neighbours were travelling into Outer Space - you were going where No Man Dared go Before: into your own INNER Space...
And safely back to the Galaxy of Eternal Verities.
And the end of all our searching
Will be to arrive back at the place we started
And KNOW the place for the first time.
Prince Hamlet
Bishop Fulton Sheen told many a good tale back in the 50’s, on our snowy B&W TV set, about how we’d all lost our core values of goodness and decency and reverence for God. Can you imagine? Even in the Fifties!
I feared his proud demeanour, and I bristled at the moral bit he put into my mouth and the heavy saddle he threw onto my back. He was uncool like my parents! Yet his was one of the first books I got on Kindle.
We hear a lot these days about our era having gone badly askew. Is there some truth to that? And can we go back to those decent days again, somehow?
To me the way back exists, but in my own case I have long been a traveller in regions of my soul where there are no fixed demarcations. Like Alan Watts, I found the Wisdom of Insecurity throughout my life to be inordinately discomfiting, but essential to my personal growth.
And all our perceptions about our disjointed times could in fact be indicative of the extent to which we have suffered and GROWN through the pain of personal maturing within the sphere of insecurity.
Perhaps our high comfort level has precluded that growth?
For myself, at a point starting around 1985, I found I had to more and more forego the restrictive though comforting fold of discrete social niceties, located in the polite little village of Urban Myth, and travel to the unsheltered badlands of the Absurd where my Quest told me to go - OUTSIDE that convenient Fold and into a New, starkly remote Postmodernist World.
Postmodernism is a Reversal. It’s upsetting. You must eschew Happy Endings there.
But - “oh, the Places You’ll Go!” as you travel at Warp Speed, careening through a Bizarro World.
It’s all right there in your books. Pick up The Stranger, by Camus, for starters and see where that takes you. Oh, and you don’t have to forego believing in what the members of Bishop Fulton Sheen’s generation called the Eternal Verities...
You’ll find the Verities will prove an awkward and ungainly fit into your overhead luggage compartment, but with a wing and a prayer you’ll settle down into your seat belt as the wild blue yonder gapes open before you like the Void - and your Quest will begin!
You open your Camus novel as the jet engines roar to life...
And many, many years from now - elderly and a bit decrepit like me - you’ll think back to that book, that flight, that Quest, and you’ll see that while all your friends and neighbours were travelling into Outer Space - you were going where No Man Dared go Before: into your own INNER Space...
And safely back to the Galaxy of Eternal Verities.
And the end of all our searching
Will be to arrive back at the place we started
And KNOW the place for the first time.
August 21, 2024
It was interesting. There were some really thought-provoking lines. The writing was beautiful and poetic and the book even had some beautiful poems from other writers. Definitely food for thought!
August 23, 2024
A wonderful book with many key insights on different aspects like sin, religious life, marriage, etc. Abp. Fulton Sheen very poetically explains complex concepts of Catholicism using simple jargon and amazing analogies. It is a bit reading this book, knowing that it is simple yet dense in knowledge.
July 9, 2024
Truly incredible
February 15, 2025
Beautiful writing. Sheen has a way of exploring the truth in profound ways that make sense to a person without a philosophy degree. Rich and vibrant; definitely worth the read!
July 25, 2016
Soul enriching
It was all I could do not to highlight every word. His writing is beautiful, and inspiring. This book greatly deepened my Catholic faith.
It was all I could do not to highlight every word. His writing is beautiful, and inspiring. This book greatly deepened my Catholic faith.
September 24, 2016
Everything Sheen wrote is pure gold.
December 30, 2024
"Świat według Boga" to kolejna fascynująca publikacja wszystkim znanego abp. Fultona J. Sheena, która ukazała się nakładem wydawnictwa AA i którą wam gorąco polecam. Książka napisana językiem prostym, dla każdego dostępnym i trafiającym wprost do serca, bo właśnie takim językiem posługiwał się abp Sheen. Bez górnolotnej teologii, zawiłych pojęć, autor porusza tematy, które znamy z życia codziennego, duchowego. Dlatego też ta niewielka książka będzie wspaniałym przewodnikiem po sferze duchowej, ale jednocześnie mającej ogromny wpływ na sprawy czysto przyziemne. Abp odpowiada na pytania dotyczące zła, naszych nieustannych wyborów pod wpływem sumienia, przemawia do osób z różnego stanu powołania, a więc do małżonków, do osób duchownych. Daje wiele cennych wskazówek jak żyć tym powołaniem każdego dnia, jak odnaleźć swoje miejsce. Z pewnością każdy znajdzie w tej książce coś dla siebie, coś co go poprowadzi, wleje nadzieję i pokój.
October 27, 2019
Inspired and needed for our times!
God's love, mercy and justice in a time when our world seems to want only those things that make us feel comfortable. We want truth but it must conform to our lifestyle and should never make us feel guilty. Truth spoken and written. Are we listening?
This is a must read.
God's love, mercy and justice in a time when our world seems to want only those things that make us feel comfortable. We want truth but it must conform to our lifestyle and should never make us feel guilty. Truth spoken and written. Are we listening?
This is a must read.
January 18, 2023
All of Sheen’s books are classics! I can’t imagine one not being 5 stars. This books focuses on humility, free will, the sacraments of service, and God’s judgement for eternity. As I’m focusing on willpower right now, I am looking at other books on discernment and strength to do God’s will.
September 26, 2024
Loved the imagery Ven. Fulton Sheen has used. Beautiful writing.
Displaying 1 - 11 of 11 reviews