Cheryl Hughes is a writer and biographer who lives in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

Her previous books are Catherine Drexel, the rags-ter story of a Catholic American saint, and crossing boundaries,

and confounding identity, Chinese women in literature, art, and film. Her new book is Archbishop

Fulton J. Sheen, convert maker. Our topic today. Welcome, Ms. Hughes.

Thank you so much.

I'm glad to be here.

We jump right into the book on this program in the beginning of chapter one.

You note how powerful it was just to see and hear Bishop Sheen on television.

Now, back in the old days, you know, when I was young, TV screens, one, you know, I was thinking about this as I read that TV screens were black and white.

And they were rather small.

Sometimes the image might be a little fuzzy.

There were these what was called snow in the picture.

If you had to adjust the rabbit ears now and then, I'm sure millennials don't know what rabbit ears are, but I certainly do.

So the, just the machinery of presentation, you might think worked against the machinery of presentation, you might think, worked against the presence, the charisma of the speaker.

What was so striking about his image and his voice, his words at that time for you?

He had very magnetic eyes, had beautiful eyes, and they were quite riveting. And everybody comments on those.

One of the people said that it was like looking into the eyes of God.

It was so commanding.

He also was a small man.

He was about 5-7, maybe 5.8 on a very proud day.

And so you really couldn't tell that on television because they angled the cameras up at him to make him look taller.

And he certainly wore all of his ecclesial garb, along with the Fariola, the big flowing cape,

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