Winning the Kingdom of God

Not content to be a political kingmaker, Franklin D. Roosevelt fancied himself a prince-of-the-church maker as well. He lobbied successfully for Francis Spellman's appointment as archbishop of New York, and in 1939, when Chicago's George William Cardinal Mundelein died, F.D.R. had his hand-picked candidate for the nation's largest archdiocese. This time he failed. Chicago Auxiliary Bishop Bernard James Sheil, the Roosevelt choice, was bypassed because he had irritated too many others inside and outside the church. Last week, after Sheil's death at 83 of heart disease, friends attending his funeral fondly recalled the cause of that irritation: for half a century, particularly in the field of social justice, Bernard Sheil was a priest 25 years ahead of his church.

Born in a mixed black-white, Catholic-Jewish, Irish-Polish neighborhood on Chicago's West Side, Sheil was lace-curtain Irish. His grandfather had been an alderman, his father was Democratic leader of the 14th Ward. Entering St. Viator's College in Bourbonnais (a later pupil: Fulton J. Sheen), Sheil was ordained in 1910 and assigned to a middle-class parish. He caught Cardinal Mundelein's eye, however, and began to receive promising assignments. He served as chaplain at the Cook County jail, as an assistant at Holy Name Cathedral and was named chancellor of the archdiocese in 1923. A year later, on his first visit to Rome, he was received by Pius XI, and in 1928 he was consecrated bishop.

Youth and Workers. By then the feisty Sheil was already showing anti-Establishment symptoms. Concerned about youth, too many of whom he had met in jail, he formed a club to keep them straight. The bishop's Catholic Youth Organization was not limited to Catholics--or to whites. Critics snickered at it as the "colored youth organization" and complained that it put too much stress on boxing tournaments. Retorted Sheil: "You can't inspire boys away from brothels and saloons with checkers tournaments."

In 1939, Sheil's predilections led him into alliance with John L. Lewis, whose CIO was attempting to organize the meat packers and increase their 390 hourly wage. Chicago's hog butchers bitterly resented hierarchical support for the workers. "I want you to remember, your excellency," a Catholic banker told Sheil as the bishop prepared to appear at a CIO meeting, "that the minute you step on that platform you lose your chance to become an archbishop." Sheil eyed the man disdainfully. "You should know," he replied, "that I wasn't ordained a priest to become an archbishop." With Sheil's blessings, the meat packers held out successfully for a 170 hourly raise and won recognition for the union.

The Shell Game. Through the years, Sheil's views were often antithetical to those of his church: he opposed, for instance, the Franco regime in Spain. He was among the first to assail the Sunday afternoon fulminations of Radio Priest Charles Coughlin at. home. He adopted as his own the words of French Cardinal Jules Saliege: "The Kingdom of God is not of this world, but it is in this world that it is won."

The last great controversy about the bishop occurred in 1954 when he used a United Autoworkers meeting to bombard Senator Joseph McCarthy's brand of antiCommunism. "You cannot effectively fight tyranny with tyranny," said Sheil. "We have been victims of a kind of shell game. We have been treated like country rubes to be taken in by a city slicker from Appleton." Sheil was attacked in turn by McCarthy supporters. "Judas Iscariot Sheil" became their favorite name for him.

Since that time, Sheil has been in the news only rarely. In 1959, Pope John, in a gracious salute to a fellow renegade, elevated Sheil to archbishop; it was a personal honor because Sheil did not head an archdiocese. In 1966, his newest superior, Archbishop John P. Cody, persuaded him to retire along with other septuagenarian pastors. After 31 years as pastor of St. Andrew's Church, Sheil went unhappily off to Tucson to spend his last years in unaccustomed inactivity under the hot Arizona sun. His body was returned to St. Andrew's last week, where, old enmities forgotten, friends and foes of other days packed the church for his requiem Mass.

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