Article from Catholic Education Resource Center (CERC).

The journalist James Conniff stated, “No Catholic bishop has burst on the world with such power as Sheen wields since long before the Protestant Reformation.” A television critic exclaimed, “Bishop Sheen can’t sing, can’t dance, and can’t act. All he is…is sensational.”

When he was scheduled to preach at St. Patrick’s cathedral in New York City, 6,000 people regularly packed the church. On Easter Sunday 1941, 7,500 worshippers were jammed into the Cathedral, and 800 waited outside, hoping to get in. On Good Friday, his sermons were broadcast outdoors to the thousands standing outside St. Patrick’s. “For three hours,” the New York Times reported, “the heart of Manhattan’s most congested midtown area became a miniature St. Peter’s Square. The phenomenon is repeated for the evening service.”

In April 1952, he appeared on the cover of Time magazine... It presented photographs of his most prominent converts: automobile magnate Henry Ford II, leftist writer Heywood Broun, author Clare Boothe Luce (wife of Time owner Henry Luce), former communist editor Louis Budenz, and famed violinist Fritz Kreisler.

The archbishop was one of the Church’s great missionaries. In 1979, the Jesuit magazine America called him “the greatest evangelizer in the history of the Catholic Church in the United States. He lavished personal attention on both rich and poor.”

How Popular was Bishop Sheen?

Bishp Sheen lectured on seriuos matters, but laced humor they were never boring. He drew as many as 30 million viewers who learned while they laughed - as they did at the one-liner from his talk on Angels.

He was so popular that appearing on the popular TV show, what's My Line, where the blindfolded panel had to discover the identity of a mystery guest, he answered questions in French to avoid immediate recognition.

Bishop Sheen by CERC

Sheen also had a passion about helping the world’s poor. As national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith from 1950 to 1966, he raised more money for the poor than any other American Catholic, an effort that was augmented by the donation of more than $10 million of his personal earnings. Not long before his death, he declared “My greatest love has always been the missions of the Church.” Read more here

Time Magazine: April 14, 1952

The talks, Christian in outlook but not specifically Roman Catholic, are designed to appeal to listeners of all faiths. The Du Mont network, which presents the show but gets no money for it, gave Sheen what the trade calls an "obituary spot," i.e., conflicting with two very popular shows on other networks, Milton Berle and Frank Sinatra (Tues. 8 p.m., E.S.T.).

Against this formidable competition, Sheen has made a spectacular showing. Du Mont was overwhelmed by the mail response (8,500 letters a week).

"He's terrific," says a spokesman for the Archdiocese of New York, which produces Bishop Sheen's program. We turn down a lot of requests that sound as if they might come from girls' schools. We don't want any squealing. First thing you know, he'd turn into a clerical Sinatra. At first we were worried about the show. You know," Read more here