Ven. Fulton Sheen on the Devil: "As Theologians Dropped the Demonic, Psychiatrists Picked it Up"

Big Catholics ^ | July 19, 2016

[NYer]

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen discusses the Devil's incessant attempts to turn our heats away from God. May we never forget that Satan, the father of lies, is a cruel deceiver of men whose only desire is our destruction. Below is a partial transcript of Venerable Sheen's remarks.

The Devil - Venerable Fulton Sheen

Starting at 4:43:

I thought perhaps you might be interested in hearing about the Devil from a sound philosophical and theological point of view. I'm going to describe to you the Devil, first from the psychiatric point of view, and secondly from the biblical. First the psychiatric.

It is interesting that as we drop things in the Church the world begins to pick them up and distorts them. Now we, for example, the nuns drop the long habits, the girls put on maxi coats. We stop saying the beads, hippies put the beads around their neck. And, as theologians dropped the demonic, the psychiatrists picked it up.

[Dr.] Rollo May of Rockefeller Institute has several chapters in his work on psychiatry on the diabolic. What is the diabolic from the purely psychiatric point of view? Dr. Rollo May analyzes the word diabolic, it comes from the Greek words dia and balime. Dia-balime is to tear apart, rend asunder. Anything, therefore, that breaks pattern, that destroys unity, that corrupts gestalt, produces discord, that is the diabolical. Now, there has been a great increase of the diabolic. Notice for example the discord in the Church, the discord in religious communities, the discord among the laity regards the Church, discord in the clergy. All these are manifestations of a spirit of the diabolic that surrounds us.

Now this psychiatrist [Dr. May] analyzes the way in which the diabolic works. And he mentions three: First love of nudity. Secondly, violence, aggressiveness. Thirdly, split personalities, no inner peace, disjointed minds.

[ … ]

Our Blessed Lord one time went into the land of the Gerasenes… and he found in this land a young man possessed of the Devil (Mark 5:1-20). The Gospel mentions three characteristics of this young man. First he was nude. Secondly, he was violent and aggressive. They could not even keep him in chains. And thirdly, his mind was split, schizophrenic. Our Lord said to him, "What is your name?" He said, "My name is Legion." 

Now a legion in his time meant six thousand soldiers in the Roman army. See already he is a person and yet he is legion, six thousand others. My name is legion for we are many. See the personality is no longer unified, I, Legion, we many. Now this psychiatrist does not ever correlate his three manifestations of the diabolic with this young man in the Gospel. I am doing that because I could not help but notice the similarity between the two. So from just a superficial point of view, the diabolic disrupts, and whenever you have a great manifestation of the Spirit you always get the Devil working. When for example, Moses in the Old Testament worked miracles against Pharaoh, Pharaoh's agents simulated a few miracles. When the Holy Spirit came upon the early Church at Pentecost, there was the persecution of Stephen. We had a Vatican Council, the blessing of the Spirit upon the Church. And we have immediately the manifestation of the evil spirit.

So I just leave you with this characteristic note of the diabolic from the psychiatric point of view. The breakup of unity, the breakup of families, the breakup of corporations, the breakup of religious communities, the breakup ofthe oneness of Christ.

[NYer]

Catholic ping!

[faithhopecharity]

Sheen did a tremendous amount of good for thousands and thousands of people, through his tv program. He did that exceptionally well....

[LouieFisk]

You can’t go wrong with “Uncle Fulty” (as he once referred to himself, re:”Uncle Milty”).

[Bogie]

Yeah, finally some substantive theology!

[HiTech RedNeck]

The worst break of all is that from the Lord.

[moodyskeptic]

You can still watch old Sheen videos on television. Very thoughtful man.

[miele man]

Thanks for posting this. I have three or four of his books and have always learned much from them. Would that the RCC had more bishops like him.

[Vaquero]

I remember Bishop Sheen as a kid in the 50s. My mother would turn him on the old Dumont. Always wondered why he never was a Cardinal. Realized later on, that it is political and he wasn’t. Interesting man, I believe he was 100% genuine....a good man.

[RushIsMyTeddyBear]

Bkmrk.

[grimalkin]

Bump!

[HerrBlucher]

Case in point, “People of the Lie” a book written by M Scott Peck, the psychiatrist who wrote “the road less travelled.” There is a chapter in it on possession, but most of it is about everyday human evil. I recommed it, quite a compelling read.

[AC Beach Patrol]

Sheen gave this talk on the devil and the demonic near the end of his life. It is prophetic and helps explain what we see in our country and the world. And while we know that the story ends well, things will continue to get much worse until then. Nonetheless we are required to live as faithful Christians and fight against evil. As Pascal put it, "It is not our task to secure the triumph of truth, but merely to fight on its behalf."

Fulton Sheen was brilliant and humble. He would work 18 hours a day and always be cheerful. He was a brilliant scholar and was offered faculty positions at both Oxford and Columbia to teach philosophy. Instead he decided to teach at Catholic University. From his highly-rated television show he earned the equivalent of $100 million (in today's dollars), which he gave away to build shelters for the homeless and unwed mothers in places like Rochester, NY. My favorite anecdote about Sheen comes from his niece:

Since he was known for his generosity, people would often come up to ask him for money, telling him how they were down on their luck. He’d hand them $20. I’d ask him, “How do you know that they’re not putting you on; that they really need help?”

He’d answer, “I can’t take the chance.”

Catholic World Report: My Uncle, Fulton Sheen

[Coleus]

I wish the church would start using Sheen’s real birth and baptismal names. He was named after 2 saints, not a steamboat.

[cloudmountain]

Thanks for posting this.
Venerable Fulton J. Sheen's words never get old.