Fulton Sheen through the eyes of David Limbaugh

Kathryn Jean Lopez has a nice article involving a new book by David Limbaugh, which cites Sheen's "Life of Christ."

She quotes from Limbaugh's work, and from works by Sheen.

A sample:
 
For his part, Limbaugh has an encouraging word for the faithful. He benefited from the kindness of friends who would give reasons for the faith they embrace. He writes about a friend of a friend who, one Christmas after law school, patiently talked about Christianity with Limbaugh, while he responded by expressing some of his doubts.

Limbaugh writes:

I shared with Steve certain doubts I had about the God of the Bible and told him I just didn’t buy into Christianity. I will never forget a couple of things about this exchange. Steve did not fit my perception at the time of the stereotypical young Christian — a judgmental holy roller who accepted Christianity uncritically. He exhibited an extraordinary measure of grace. He not only didn’t take offense at my skepticism, but he patiently retrieved his Bible from his bedroom and began to walk me through a few fascinating verses. This might have been the first time outside of Sunday school or church that someone went directly to the source and shared it with me.

Undaunted and unoffended by my challenge, he gave me a model Christian response. Despite my skepticism, I was not close-minded and was genuinely interested in learning. I knew, after all, that I hadn’t really given the Bible a hearing, much less a fair one. To my surprise — and this is embarrassing to admit — Steve showed me how verses of Scripture, both Old and New Testaments, were tied to others in content and theme with remarkable frequency.

Limbaugh goes on to say that because Steve wasn’t remotely judgmental, “for the first time in my life  the Bible appeared to me to be thematically integrated. The scales of my eyes started peeling away.”

And from Sheen's work:

In an address in 1936, Sheen talked about the “Forgotten Man.” Digging deep, you can find him everywhere, Sheen said:

Our problem today then is the problem of the Forgotten Man — not the forgotten man in the sense of the man who is unemployed or hungry; not the forgotten man who is economically dispossessed, or socially disinherited; not the forgotten man of the bread lines, but forgotten man in the sense of forgotten human dignity, forgotten human worth, forgotten divine destiny, forgotten personality, forgotten power to rise above the state and the collective to commune with the Life and Truth and Love which is God. This is the real Forgotten Man of our day — the man who can enter into himself and find down in the depths of his soul that he was made for God and only God can make him remembered — even for eternity.

This article is worth reading just for the quotations from Sheen.