His beloved talk shows were like lengthy homilies, focusing primarily on the spiritual life and politics of the day. He was witty and “politically incorrect” by today’s standards, regularly criticizing socialism and communism.

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Imagine that. Some 30 million people watching a weekly program about morality. That denounces Marxism. On a major television network. Just imagine that.

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But I digress.

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In one such televised episode, Archbishop Sheen discussed the roles of Russia and the United States in the world’s victory over communism.

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“Communism will never be defeated,” he prophetically said. “It will be converted.”

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Sheen explained with this analogy. “Where the body is there shall the eagles be gathered together...where the carcass is there the vultures are... When an organism begins to die, physically or spiritually, then come the vultures. That’s the nature of communism in the world.”

 

The Archbishop said, “Communism is the scavenger of decaying civilization. It makes its way into a country or a culture only when that culture begins to rot from the inside...

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“Lincoln always said that America would never be conquered from without... If it would ever perish, it would come only from within.”

 

According to Sheen, “Communism is coming upon the western world because something died in the western world.”

 

What did the Archbishop mean? What died?

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Many things, actually. And it’s even more true today than it was then. Just look at any mainstream news source. We are witnessing the death of faith, reason, love, purity, and truth. And now, the proponents of communism swarm over the world like vultures.

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We have become a society of cynics, rotting in confusion, division, impurity, and hostility. Now, we are an easy takeover, weak and desperate.

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“Communism is the manure... a sort of death... spread upon the world. Until a springtime comes,” Sheen explained.

 

And he believed that a springtime WILL come. He believed Russia will be converted.

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According to the Archbishop, “When Russia receives the gift of faith, Russia will have a new role, and this role will be to be an apostle to the rest of the world.”

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Yes, you read the correctly. Sheen believed Russia would become a national evangelist. An apostle. Why? How?

 

Sheen said it is because of one reason: “Russia has the fire.”

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He said, “The great shame is that we (the United States) have the truth, but no zeal. They (Russia) have the zeal, but no truth. Someday their fire — instead of burning downward — will burn upward in a Pentecostal fire bringing peace and joy to men.”

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Sheen continued, “We in the western world lack that fire. Where is the fire of patriotism today? We in the western world are rather cold and dull and apathetic.”

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He used this analogy: “If a man loves a woman, he ought to be able to talk about her. If we love God, we ought to be able to talk about him. If we love our country, we ought to be able to talk about it.

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“The Russian fire has incredible potentiality. They do not deny God. They merely challenge God. They are not like our sophomores in college who are not thinking of him with any zeal at all. They are fighting against him. Because they know he exists and that will be the new role of Russia.”

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But what about America? What is our role? “Oh we have a magnificent role,” Sheen said. “We in America, we are destined under Providence to be the secondary cause for the restoration and the freedom and the liberties of the people of the world. The secondary cause. God is the primary cause. Therefore we will have to make ourselves worthy of it.”

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Sheen explained, “Our country has always had a great role. First of all it was a sanctuary—a sanctuary of the oppressed. Then it became an arsenal of democracy.

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“America‘s role is also now to roll up the curtain of the eastern world not to say the western world is to perish, but America is to help give birth now to the eastern world in prosperity and peace.”

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According to Sheen, “That’s the way that peace comes to the world...America has a far nobler destiny really than it knows... I think that America’s role at the present time is very much like that of Simon of Cyrene. You remember Simon of Cyrene was a stranger in the city on the day the Friday that was called good. He stationed himself at a roadway in order to watch a man go to his death. He did not know who he was. He was just curious, as some men are about men going to death. And as he watched the procession, the Son of God carried the cross to Calvary. The long arm of the Roman law reached out to him, and said to him, ‘Take up his cross. Bear it.’

 

“He did not want to do it. But he took it and followed in the footsteps and the yoke soon became sweet, and the burden soon became light.”

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Sheen explained, “America is at the crossroads too—the crossroads of a suffering world that is undergoing a crucifixion of Communism. And the long arm of providence is reaching out to America and is saying to America, ‘take up that cross—that cross of all the starving people of the world. Take it up. Bear it.’ And America is presently carrying that cross.

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Sheen told his audience, “Our great country does not know whose cross it is carrying. Actually, we are carrying a nobler cross than we know. We are carrying a nobler cross than we deserve.”

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These are the words of a prophetic Archbishop uttered decades ago, words that are echoing ever more loudly today.