Not too long ago, they ripped up the old carpeting in the pulpit of my parish church in Queens. The rug was almost threadbare, and the workers determined it must have been the original stuff, put down in the early 1940’s. I told someone they should have saved the carpet and cut it up to make third class relics, since one of the people who often walked across that carpet, and stood on it to preach, was a man considered among the most influential and beloved preachers of the last century — a man now up for canonization — the legendary Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.

Sheen made it habit to stop by our parish to preach when he was in town; he attracted such overflow crowds, that they installed large speakers outside the church, for those who couldn’t make it into the building. The speakers are still there, encrusted in pigeon droppings.

A website has been set up for those who want to contribute to Sheen’s canonization cause. It’s a treasure trove of inspiring stories, and it beautifully presents Sheen’s life story for those who may be coming to it for the first time. It’s hard for us today to grasp what a media sensation he was in the 1950’s: this colorful and charistmatic Catholic with his flowing cape and piercing eyes, working with little more than a blackboard and chalk (and elegant penmanship, which was on display when he scrawled at the top of the board “J.M.J,” for “Jesus, Mary and Joseph.”) He was bigger, even, than Milton Berle. When the archbishop unexpectedly won an Emmy Award, beating out Berle (among others), he cracked: “I’d like to thank my writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John.”

Those of us who toil in the business of communications can’t help but pray for Fulton Sheen — and pray to him, as well. Visit the site for his canonization and see for yourself the sorts of miracles he has helped to happen.

In our own troubled age, when the media serves less as a Gabriel and more as a Gawker or Googler, we need all the miracles we can get.