I thought “It’s A Good Thing Jesus Came Along” (February 2020) was a very odd look at salvation history and how to live with your neighbors. In the Old Testament, God made a covenant of a Promised Land in Genesis. In Joshua 23:5 God said about the Canaanites, “The Lord, your God, will drive them out and dispossess them at your approach, so that you will take possession of their land as the Lord, your God, promised you” (not be good neighbors). The Israelites did not follow God’s instructions and were a little too “neighborly,” which ushered in the whole era of the judges and more suffering. All Catholics could benefit from taking Bible-study classes to better understand the Old Testament.
Anthony P., LA
In “Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s Path to Sainthood” (January 2020), I believe your readers were left hanging. Toward the end of the piece it mentions: “The Vatican delayed his beatification at the request of a few US bishops.” Do you have any more information on this subject?
Mike G., FL
Editor’s note: We printed the information that was available to us at the time of our deadline for our January edition. Right after it went to press, a December 9 article by John L. Allen, Jr., editor of Cruxnow.com and an author of books for Liguori Publications, stated that “the Diocese of Rochester, where Sheen served as an auxiliary bishop from 1959 to 1966 and as the bishop until his retirement in 1969, acknowledged in a statement that it had requested the delay ‘to allow for further review of his role in priests’ assignments.’”
“To be clear,” the article continued, “there’s no suggestion of any personal misconduct by Sheen. An official in Sheen’s home diocese of Peoria, IL, which spearheaded the beatification cause, told reporters the concerns focus on a particular Rochester priest accused of sexual misconduct during Sheen’s years as a bishop, but insisted that the case had been thoroughly investigated and no mishandling by Sheen was discovered.”
Allen’s article is available at Cruxnow.com. If further action takes place on Venerable Sheen’s cause for sainthood, Liguorian will publicize it.
