Hey, remember when the NFL thought Michael Sam would be a distraction?
— Luis Paez-Pumar (@paezpumarL) September 12, 2014
Speaking of gladiatorial endeavors, recovering Catholics and medieval-history fans might enjoy this NYTimes article:
The Roman Catholic Diocese of Peoria, Ill., has already constructed a museum in honor of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, a native son whose Emmy-winning television show during the 1950s brought Catholicism to the American living room. It has documented several potential miracles by him and compiled a dossier on his good works for the Vatican.
It has drawn up blueprints for an elaborate shrine in its main cathedral to house his tomb and sketched out an entire devotional campus it hopes to complete when its campaign to have him declared the first American-born male saint succeeds.
There has been just one snag in the diocese’s carefully laid veneration plans: the matter of Archbishop Sheen’s body.
Since his death in 1979, his remains have been sealed in a white marble crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, the city where he spent much of his life. And though the Peoria diocese says it was promised the remains, Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan, who considers Archbishop Sheen something of a personal hero, has refused to part with them, citing the wishes of the archbishop and his family.
Now the dispute over Archbishop Sheen’s corpse has brought a halt to his rise to sainthood, just as he appeared close to beatification, the final stage before canonization. Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, Peoria’s leader, announced this month that the process had been suspended because New York would not release the body…
As a native New Yorker, it’s hard not to agree with the argument that “the first televangelist” beat feet out of Peoria as soon as he was old enough to have a choice. On the other hand, irking Cardinal Timmy Dolan has to be considered at least a minor work of mercy, so…
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Apart from theological debate, what’s on the agenda for the evening?