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Did Fulton Sheen support Vatican II?

The Church

The short answer

Yes. In his autobiography Treasure in Clay, Sheen devoted a chapter to the Council and called Gaudium et Spes "brilliant." He saw the turmoil after the Council as the kind of opposition that always follows an outpouring of the Holy Spirit.

His own account

Sheen's autobiography, Treasure in Clay, written just before his death in 1979 and published afterward, gives a whole chapter to his experience at Vatican II. He called Gaudium et Spes "brilliant."

Popes before and after

He recalled with affection his audiences with popes before the Council, such as Pius XI and Pius XII, and after it, such as John XXIII and Paul VI. Within a year of John Paul II's election he predicted he would be one of the greatest popes in history.

The upheaval

Sheen wrote that post-conciliar tensions should not surprise anyone who knows Church history: whenever the Holy Spirit is poured out, as in a general council, the forces opposed to the Spirit push back — just as persecution and Stephen's martyrdom followed Pentecost. If a council stirred no turbulence, one might almost doubt the Holy Spirit had been at work in it.