Bishop Bernard Sheil (February 18, 1888 – September 13, 1969) created the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) which some said meant “crush your opponent.” Young Mike Tyson was a CYO champ. This photo took place during Berlin Airlift after WW II. Pope Leo XIV should imitate Bishop Sheil.

Bishop Sheil Should Be Pope Leo’s Role Model

Editor’s note: Chicago is the city of tribes. And in the 1950s, the city of tribes was torn by racial and ethnic tensions. The reporting of the time reflects the anger and hatred expressed by people under tremendous pressure and change, using language that is not endorsed by JohnKassNews.com. But it does reflect the reality of the city. At that time, the Communist Party—was gaining a foothold in urban America. And in the middle of all this was Bishop Bernard J. Sheil, athlete and anti-communist. The church and Chicago need good men like this.

JK

By Pat Hickey

May 30th, 2025

One hundred and thirty-three men wearing red robes and hats chose the Vicar of Christ, Leo XIV, in the first full week of May in year of Our Lord 2025.  Ten of those men are Americans and one Chicago Archbishop Blase Cupich was influential in the papacy of Francis I: not a good thing. Nor would it be good for Pope Leo XIV to take counsel from the Archbishop Cardinal of Chicago.

Francis The First played to the press and the political winds. Blasé Cupich is a glib politician, who was schooled in ecclesiastical gamesmanship by the odious Theodore McCarrick. Cupich is McCarrick Lite. Cupich’s predecessor Francis Cardinal George was a real priest and a great prelate. Cupich was not supposed to replace Cardinal George, but “Uncle Ted” McCarrick lobbied Francis I for the weak sister who empties more pews in Chicago every week. The Archdiocese of Chicago is weak.

Now, a Chicagoland native son is the successor of St. Peter and the Vicar of Christ. Cardinal Rovert Prevost chose an excellent name to represent his pontificate. Leo XIV is the Pope of the working man and Chicago had been a working man’s city. It was a city of big shoulders and bigger Catholic faith.

The Catholic Church is weak, and the American Catholic Church might be the lamest. On Sundays, a mere sprinkling of worshippers hit the kneelers and pews. The Catholic Church in America was a dynamo, until Vatican II and after that a slugabed. Where once a Bishop Fulton J. Sheen commanded the television airwaves and rivalled Milton Berle and Steve Allen for TV viewers, Catholics are now offered only Mass for Shut Ins. Real men wore the collar and exercised their faith with their flocks. Pope Leo XIV can restore the Church to its former robust self by imitating a true Chicago saint – Bishop Bernard J. Sheil. Archbishop Bernard Sheil worked as a prison chaplain as well as a parish priest. He was disturbed that too many young men went to the gallows, or died in prison, because of poverty’s strangle hold on the soul.

Born in Chicago, Bishop Sheil was an athlete who pitched a no-hitter for St. Viator College, a Roman Catholic Seminary in Bourbonnais, Illinois ( alma mater of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen), which is now Olivet Nazarene University. Shiel pitched a no-hitter against the University of Illinois and later sparred with capitalists and Communists to achieve a just wage and human working conditions. Cardinal Mundelein made Father Bernard Sheil his point man on social justice and the heavyweight against communism. Sheil gloried in these roles helped burnish Pope Leo XIV’s reputation as the Pope of the Working Man.

The Catholic Church gave up St. Viator’s to a small Protestant denomination from Texas. The Nazarene Church flourished and their college in Bourbonnais is that denomination’s Notre Dame. Bernard Shiel became a Catholic priest, when being a Catholic meant putting one’s money where one’s mouth was. I grew up at the end of that era – post Vatican II. The Mass went from universal Latin to English and lost the beauty, majesty and mystery that should be fundamental to the Sacrament of the Eucharist. Liturgy was now vernacular – conducted in English, Spanish, Polish, Croatian, and even Tagalog. Priests faced the congregation and Consecration of the Eucharist took a backseat to Father’s lecture on Social Justice.

Social Justice had been taught in Catholic Schools, and it was hands-on – CISCA -Catholic Intra Student Catholic Action. Catholic Action meant getting involved in the Faith. Helping the poor, the orphaned, the widowed, the imprisoned, the sick, the disabled and the disenfranchised.

“Officially founded in 1930, the Catholic Youth Organization (CYO) built upon previously initiated Holy Name Societies in parishes throughout the Chicago Archdiocese. Centralized in a downtown office and led by the legendary and controversial Bishop Bernard J. Sheil, the CYO sought to combat delinquency, Americanize ethnic Catholics, and bridge social divisions during the Great Depression. Whereas previous Americanization efforts of Cardinal George Mundelein had met with meager success, the CYO fostered widespread Catholic unity even as it furthered the Church’s inclusion in the mainstream culture. The CYO offered a wide-ranging system of social services, community centers, and vacation schools; but its greatest publicity resulted from an extensive and comprehensive sports program that claimed the world’s largest basketball league (430 teams) and an international boxing team. Such CYO ventures included American Indians, African Americans, Asians, and Jews, which catapulted Bishop Sheil to national prominence as a social activist and labor leader.”  Gerald R. Gems

From grammar school through parenthood, Catholics belonged to the Church – they did not only attend Mass on Sunday. Whether it was a sport, a fine arts initiative, a novena, or a dance, Chicago Catholics belonged in and to every aspect of community life. Little guys and girls who played on CYO teams also joined devotional sodalities and later brought that commitment to their studies and careers.

Like St. Viator College, that sense of belonging seems to have been the price of new relevancies of Vatican II. Words not Deeds trumped everything at one time.

The CYO became irrelevant to universal social change. CYO like too much of the Catholic Church in America was co-opted.

Social Justice was youth oriented and found outlets in athletics that brought blacks and white, better-off, and destitute kids together for boxing, football, basketball, swimming, track, and field. This was the CYO the Catholic Youth Organization developed by Father and later Bishop Bernard Sheil, who pitched a no-hitter against University of Illinois for St. Viator College.

Bernard J. Sheil is almost forgotten today. Leftist History has burned his life in the Orwellian memory hole over the last sixty years. America is seriously dumbed down. Bishop Sheil’s Wikipedia passage is such thin gruel it is not worth a glance. Bishop Sheil’s life is yet in the dusty covers of old books and the files of the Archdiocese of Chicago Archives.

Sheil was ecumenical and catholic long before Pope John II called all of the red hats and miters to Rome. He was a priest in the tradition of stockyard pastors like Monsignor Dorney who walked up and down Halsted and physically threatened pimps and saloon keepers, as well as read them off from the pulpit. Sheil, like Father Dorney who was called the King of the Stockyards, respected and obeyed by labor leaders, packing house owners and parishioners of St. Gabriel Parish, took the Gospel outdoors. Not only that, Sheil made things happen. He worked both sides of the ideological street, while working with Saul Alinskey he balanced things with Joe Meegan of the Back of the Yards Council. While fighting for social justice, Bishop Sheil confounded International Communism for the snake oil that it is. The Lefties hated Sheil, and they helped bury his deeds during the triumph of political correctness.

For a Progressive there is no forgive and forget. There is only forget and bedamned so that everyone forgets what happened ten minutes ago.

Bishop Bernard J. Sheil was so effective that Franklin Delano Roosevelt stayed connected with Bishop Sheil all through his Presidencies.

Most of all, unlike later day priest-prophets, Sheil used the media and did not become its tool. Sheil dug into his cassock pockets and showed up early to set up chairs.

According to a Time Magazine article 1953:

“With his (Sheil’s) own inheritance from his father and $10,000 . . . Bernard Sheil set up gyms that offered young and tough potential gangsters—white and Negro, Protestant, Catholic and Jew—with a social and athletic program that kept moralizing to a minimum. Boxing was the major attraction. When some high-minded people clucked at the stress on boxing at a such huge level of competition, Bishop Sheil’s reply was: “Show me how you can inspire boys away from the brothels and saloons with a checker tournament and I’ll put on the biggest checker tournament you ever saw.”

Today the bishop has a staff of 500 to help him run the C.Y.O… which spent $1,500,000 last year in Chicago alone on such projects as two large community centers in Italian and Negro neighborhoods, medical, psychiatric, child-guidance and remedial-reading clinics, a radio station, and an orientation program for Puerto Ricans. There are hundreds of other C.Y.O. centers throughout the U.S. and abroad. . . .
Bishop Sheil made himself just as unpopular with fringes on the right as with those on the left. At one forum on Christian-Jewish relations he was viciously heckled by a delegation of Christian Fronters, and a virago pushed her way towards him as he was leaving. “I’m a Catholic!” she screamed. “You’re not a Catholic—you’re a n—–lover and a Jew-lover. You call yourself a bishop. You’re not a bishop, you’re a rabbi.” And she spat in his face.

According to that 1953 Time magazine report,
Bishop Sheil did not move a muscle. “I thank you. madam, for the compliment of your action and your words.” he said calmly. “Rabbi? That is what they called our Lord.”
Words matter to ninnies. Action and Deeds mark a human being’s impact.
Bishop Sheil acted. He was an athlete who understood balance – the Gospel must be accepted and put into action in the same way that a boxer mixes the doctrine of assault and defense in its proper proportion. There are few Bishop Sheil’s in the ring these days. Bishop Robert Barron, Bishop Thomas J. Paprocki and Cardinals Dolan and Burke come to mind. I hope Pope Leo XIV will be a man of their particular stripe. They are priests and spiritual athletes, like the old American prelate who would lace up the gloves with poor kids.

I hope the Holy Spirit directs the Vicar of Christ and not some McCarrick creature, like Blasé Cupich of Chicago. May the first American Pope from Chicagoland fight for the faith like Bishop Bernard J. Sheil. The Catholic Church needs a tough guy. Be that tough guy, Pope Leo XIV.

-30-

Born November 8, 1952 in Englewood Hospital, Chicago Illinois, Pat Hickey attended Chicago Catholic grammar and high schools, received a Bachelor of Arts in English Literature from Loyola University in 1974, began teaching English and coaching sports at Bishop McNamara High School in Kankakee, IL in 1975, married Mary Cleary in 1983, received a Master of Arts in English Literature from Loyola in 1987, taught at La Lumiere School in Indiana from 1988-1994, took a position as Director of Development with Bishop Noll

 Institute in Hammond, IN and then Leo High School in Chicago in 1996.  His wife Mary died in 1998 and Hickey returned with his three children to Chicago’s south side. From 1998 until 2019, it became obvious that Illinois and Chicago turned like Stilton cheese on a humid countertop. In that time, he wrote a couple of books and many columns for Irish American News. When the kids became independent and vital adults, he moved to Michigan City, Indiana, Hickey substitute teaches K-12 for Westville, Indiana schools and works as a tour guide/deckhand on the Emita II tour boat. He walks to the Michigan City Lighthouse every chance he gets.

Comments 48

  1. Nice bit of history Pat. I too am not a Cupich fan (or Francis for that matter).

    I pray for Pope Leo. He’ll need all the guidance from God he can get.

    Thank you for this.

  2. We are not fans of Cardinal Cupich as well. He lost us when he caved to Governor Money Bags and closed the Church during Covid. The liquor and weed places stayed open and fed the state tax money while the people of faith were denied their First Amendment rights and the Cardinal went along with it. Other religious stood up to the government’s bullying. Our Cardinal did not.

    1. Boxing is stupid sport. In my pathology residency I was assigned to present a journal club on pathology due to a sport. This in the 1970s. My research revealed that CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy was well known then, but only in Europe, especially England. The English journals were filled with papers on CTE, due to boxing! There were no reports in American journals of pathology.
      Vatican ll did not cause the decline of the Catholic Church. It was the birth control pill! Once women controlled there bodies it was over for the church. Women no longer feared unwanted pregnancies. The Church no longer could instill fear in women. I am not taking sides here, just pointing out the obvious.
      The church cannot attract men into priesthood and nor women to become nuns. It’s a lonely unrewarding life. Being celibate is past tense. Kiss it good bye. Until the Church allows married priests it will die. I went to seminary. Even as a teenager I sensed their sadness of not being able to marry.
      Latin mass? Give me a break. As an altar boy memorizing my responses was a PIA. I never found Latin the language you think it is and I took 4 years of it and was quite good at speaking and reading it. Must admit it helped in human anatomy classes.
      You live and relish a past that will never return.

        1. Thank you for the great column. I remember that Bishop Sheil is the bishop who confirmed me way back in 1958. I knew nothing of him at the time other than that he was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of Chicago, whose Cardinal at the time was , I think. Cardinal Stritch. I was inspired by your column and am grateful to know the kind of person who administered the sacrament to me.

      3. In terms of boxing you’re full of crap. “Punch Drunk” in boxers was first described by an American pathologist in a 1928 JAMA publication. In the article the author points out the obvious: this was known and observed – perhaps informally – for decades. This term was later referred to as “Dementia Pugilistica” again by an American investigator in a publication in 1937. In fact the idea that head trauma via punches caused chronic brain damage in boxes was a well established trope in Hollywood movies for decades. The coverup of such facts (until relatively recently) was not related to boxing – it was well known – but rather to Americas favorite sport: football. You obviously know nothing about boxing. I would keep my bloviating mouth shut rather than display my ignorance.

        Yeah, I guess boxing is a stupid sport compared to football because football is so otherwise healthy. Right? You’re an idiot. It takes guts to get into the ring. Boxing demands all sorts of admirable qualities, many of which you obviously don’t have. Life is full of risks buddy. If you want no risk, stay in your room 24 x 7.

      4. Have you ever boxed yourself? I doubt it, since you have expressed no understanding of the benefits of engaging in the activity – at a reasonable level.

        Certainly, if my objective is to pommel my opponent into unconsciousness, that is not a sport, that is criminal assault.

        But the art of boxing, as I practice it, is a mano a mano contest of wills and skills. It is something I practice that, IMHO, makes me a better man.

  6. When I moved down to Manhattan, Illinois, I got my car repaired by a fellow named Doyle who was ex-Southsider from the St. Margeret of Scotland parish many years before. I asked him if he read about the 90-yea-old plus pastor from that parish who in the near past took on an intruder who broke into his residence in fist cups. Tom said that when he was young and the pastor then much younger, the pastor had a boxing ring constructed at the parish where he taught young lads the art of boxing. They do not make them like that anymore. Where are the old school Irish priests who were also warriors?

    1. Jim, That was Father Dan Mallette, who unlike Blond Jesus Pfleger, was an actual civil rights hero and a great boxer. He used to swim at Leo High School after reading the Southtown while driving north on Vincennse. He was the real deal.

  7. Great history lesson. Thanks!
    Also, expertly explains the demise of the church today.
    As for Pope Leo being the man to resurrect it, forget it! I read just yesterday that one of his top initiatives is pushing for action on Climate Change.

  8. Hoping Leo can be to the Church like Trump is being to the country. It looked like the country was too far gone to be saved now it seems to be back on a bumpy road to recovery.

    John’s Vatican II was to the Church as Johnson’s Great Society was to the nation. Not a good decade.

    My last regular Sunday Mass was when I counted six rounds of applause during mass.

        1. Tom, speaking of named calling, in our circle we call people like you “munts.” I am sure you can decipher the meaning; in other words, you squat when you pee.

    2. Bob Wake up!!!! The Current Generation and the 3 or 4 that preceded it have no clue about Latin or all the Catholic VooDoo you reminisce about. I hope and pray that Pope Leo 14 will do what all Christians are called to do. Preach Jesus!

      1 Corinth: 22-24. Jews demand signs and Greeks look for wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified: a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, but to those whom God has called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

      Rom 1: 16 For I am not ashamed of the gospel, because it is the power of God that brings salvation to everyone who believes: first to the Jew, then to the Gentile.

  10. Very well done, Mr. Hickey- I attended Catholic grade school and high school, long time Altar Boy, and I was a CYO member for many years. I too have watched the Catholic Church change dramatically. Whenever I used to discuss religion with non-Catholic friends I could always come back with “Yeah, but we stick with the things we believe”. Unfortunately, I don’t feel like I can say that anymore.

    I believed in what I was taught as a kid, and still believe in the majority of it. Every time I see a Nun, I got up and thank them. When they ask why I’m thanking them, I tell them that a lot of what I am today is because of the influence of women like them. I’d bet that many of them didn’t have college degrees, but teaching was their life, and they lived it with honor and commitment. The overwhelming majority of the Priests that I knew as a kid, and later the Chaplains in the military did the same thing. I believe in Freedom of Speech, but when Priests and the higher ups in the Church become “pseudo-politicians” it turns me off.

  11. Not a Catholic. Couldn’t tell you about the Latin. To me, all Catholic services are relatively the same. But, respect the church because it used to dig its heels in upon the principles it was founded. Anti-abortion, no gay marriage etc. Cupich, Francis, and their cadre stray from those principles. They are political operatives who use the church to advocate for left-wing economics and left-wing ideas. I do not know how Pope Leo will be, but I hope he returns the church to its roots and away from politics. Mainline Protestant denominations are only about politics these days, and not forgiveness and salvation.

  12. Pope Leo XlV took the name after his predecessor Leo Xlll. Have any of you ‘good Catholics’ read Leo Xlll encyclical ‘Rerum Novarum’ from 1891. I assume all you ‘bring back’ the Latin Mass acolytes can translate but just in case you’ve forgotten your Latin its, The Condition of Labor. All you rabid anti Commies should read it.
    Let me quote from it:
    ‘It has come to pass that Working Men, have been given over, isolated and defenseless, to the callousness of EMPLOYERS and the greed of unrestrained competition (Capitalism?). The evil has been increased by rapacious Usury, which, although more than once condemned by the Church, is nevertheless, under a different form but with the SAME GUILT, still practiced by avaricious and grasping men (think Trump). And to this must be added the custom of working by contract, and the concentration of so many branches of trade IN THE HANDS OF A FEW INDIVIDUALS, so that a small number of the VERY RICH MEN have been able to lay upon the masses of the poor a yoke little better than slavery itself!’
    Sounds like Karl Marx doesnt. OMG a Commie pope. Oh Lawdy, Lawdy the sky is falling.
    Don’t panic the Encyclical defends private property and attacks Socialism of that era but it’s demands for workers is right out of Das Kapital.
    I suspect in a few months you all will be condemning this new Commie Pope.
    In case any are interested:
    SEVEN GREAT ENCYCLICALS, intro by Wm. Gibbons, S.J.
    Paulist Press, Glen Rock, N.J.
    1963
    MADE IN USA!

      1. Sorry I should have added the Clinton’s, Bidens, Mitchell McConnel, etc. Didn’t mean it was only Trump. There are uber rich on both sides. I actually support many of what Trump is doing and for a long time Dem I amaze myself!
        Two facedness (?word?) is endemic on both sides regarding wealth. All pols are whores.

  15. Great article Pat re Fr. Bernie Shiel for I remember him at St. Andrew’s and some of the boxing ledgends (Tony Zale etc.) that would train and visit with him. I thank God that I grew up in the 30’s and 40’s and learned the true values of life. Thank God for Bishop Barron

  16. My Dad played CYO basketball. I have a photo of him and his team in my desk. He’s the one in the front row holding the basketball. It was a championship team. That’s when if you scored ten points you probably were the winner. Unlike today’s violent brutish version of the game. Dad was the son of an Irish immigrant. The family lived in a three flat behind the Schole(?) shoe factory on the near north side (forgive us for that). They played 16-in softball on an empty lot facing the L. Whoever hit a home run onto the tracks had to climb up to get the ball. Yes, things have vastly changed.

  17. From a non Catholic and outsider perspective it sounds like Pope Leo XIV is already changing things, I read that a few days ago he gave an edict that Fathers in Dioceses can date Nuns but should refrain from getting into the Habit.

  18. Some history of Bishop Sheil.
    Born and raised in Chicago.
    Ordained in 1910.
    Named Auxilliary Bishop 1928 which he held for over 40 yrs.
    As Bishop he was given the titular see of Pegae.
    On 6/5/59 became Archbishop, being named titular Archbishop of Selge.
    Ok now I must warn you anti Commies to sit down and get your smelling salts: Sheil was “outspoken advocate of SOCIAL JUSTICE (are you guys still there?) in the underprivileged and marginalized sectors of the community’. His PRO LABOR stance led him to endorse and support many strikes!
    The Sheil School of Social Studies, which focused on education, opened at CYO HQ in 1943. In 11 yrs it enrolled 20,000 students. IN 1954 SHEIL VEHEMENTLY ATTACKED JOS. MCCARTHY, at a time when most Catholics (like you dear readers)
    supported this right wing alcoholic lush, provoking the withdrawal of some financial supporters of his project. The Sheil Catholic Center at Northwestern University is named for him. Why not a Catholic University? Too Marxist?

  19. Pat, excellent piece. Our parish on the SW side never has a CYO. Seem to remember it was only in “poorer parishes” Who knows, maybe the parish women’s club thought boxing too harsh? Both eminences George and Francis played the expedient political game. Much harm to the once highly influential Catholic Church in Chicago. I’m also glad Pope Leo turned out to be. REAL Sox fan. The Cubs initially tried to co-opt his allegiances but his brother and a timely photo during a Sox pennant run corrected THAT. Not there for the ambiance nor “experience, but real sout side ball!!
    Nice piece Pat. Loyola’s English department would be pleased.

  20. As a product of CYO in Chicago south side
    Found your article interesting & information I was unaware of. This is the stuff documentaries are made. I’d like to see this life of this man honored

  21. Excellent Non-Political Article!
    1. I could find an attachment with Bishop Bernard Shiel right away that my late father was of the same age, born Feb 6, 1888 and died Feb 8, 1969!
    2. His Challenge “Show me how you can inspire boys away from the brothels and saloons with a checker tournament and I’ll put on the biggest checker tournament you ever saw.” was classic!
    3. I couldn’t agree with you more on this Blasé Cupich creature! He is a politician (Pope Francis) appointed master politician. From day #1, I had a suspicion on this guy and he didn’t prove me wrong when he started having dinner with the Mayor and the Dreamers!
    4. I wasn’t happy at the election of Cardinal Jorge to the Pontiff based on the only consideration by the lazy cardinals that 10 years ago then he placed 2nd to the then Pope Benedict XVI. The cardinals didn’t go thru his background especially since he became Cardinal Jorge who was playing political game with the military regime of Argentina. He refused the public’s plea to enquire and investigate the disappearance of thousands of youth from the city, saying that he is only interested in providing for the poor and starving! Then he brokered with the military junta on the gay unions in place of gay marriage! And I don’t see a difference.
    5. Couple of years after he was appointed Arch-Bishop of Chicago, Cupich waited until a parish who was trying to name a newly renovated high school in Chicago came up with a list of 3 finalists. Then he “threw a 4th name in the hat “. You guessed, it was Pope Francis! And the school board immediately accepted and named the school after Pope Francis. And you guessed, in two (2) months Archbishop Cupich was appointed Cardinal Cupich!
    And his constant approach to the Pontiff ever since could be only based on his hope for promotion to powerful Vatican council! I will rather strip him off his credentials and send him to a remote church to re-practice his basic pastoral duties to a farming community parish.
    6. And I strongly believe to this date while Obama-Biden and the three woman justices in the supreme court along with Justice Antony Screwball Kennedy planted the seeds for Covid Pandemic along with countless international world government leaders, Pope Francis kicked the pandemic off the ground from Vatican into the rest of the world, taking the lives of millions, when he lectured in a fall 2019 Vatican Production to the world governments that they all approve gay unions! The Vatican suppressed that production then, only to release later in 2020 after the Covid Pandemic broke out! Remember how the sexual revolution that started in the 1960’s kicked off the ‘Breast Cancer’ among women?! – I rest my case.

  22. Thank you Mr. Hickey for your column on Bishop Shiel, who’s story I did not know, and for mentioning Bishop Paprocki, among others, for being in the same “ring.” I also pray that Pope Leo XIV will be tough guy we need right now.

  23. Thank You Pat – very intriguing article. I too attended Catholic grade school and HS. I loved all my priests, they were mentors, coaches and men you looked up to. People would say what Parish they were from to signify where they lived and most knew the neighborhood mapping in their heads – still do even for now closed parishes. We played baseball in the church parking lot or the Jewel lot next door on Sundays (back when Jewel closed around noon on Sunday) and sometimes the priests would watch or maybe pitch an inning for us. It was so different then.
    I too very much dislike Cupich (thankfully I’m in the Joliet Archdiocese now) and was not a fan of Francis. I’m being gentle with my words. Admired John Paul 2, as well as Cardinals George and Bernardin. Have high hopes for Leo 14 to help restore the meaning of Catholicism back in the world. Reading your article brought back great memories. Thank you Sir!!!!!

  25. This note of mine will offend all you ‘Kill A Commie for Christ’ types. As an undergraduate and medical student I was active in civil rights in 60s and 70s. As a seminarian at Quigley I met Alinsky, Sheil, Jack Egan, John O’Grady and many, many other ‘radical’ priests at that time. Alinsky and Sheil and Egan were close friends and collaborators with Sheil support for Alinskys community organizing efforts. Their friendship and collaboration was evident in the establishment of Industrial Areas Foundation (IAF) a national community network organizing effort founded by Alinsky with backing of Sheil and Marshall Field, lll. Sheil introduced Alinsky to key parish priests and PROVIDED FINANCIAL SUPPORT for his work. Sheil also supported Alinskys work in Back of the Yards.

    1. Yet again, you prove that you know nothing Q.E.D. Do sum research. Read something. Better yet, take a very, very long walk somewhere else.

        1. You shoot your mouth off and say nothing, contrubute nothing and take up space while boring the hell out of everyone.

          1. Sheil, like Cardinal Mundelein and Pope Leo XIII, Pope Pius XI and XII was an avowed anti-Communists.

          2.Alinsky was a Commie manipulator and user, Egan a grifter and O’Grady an ambitious fool.

          3. You are a both shameless boor and a bore. You will continue to be a pest.

          4. I am done with you bull$hit – you are ignored.

          1. Wow, that was VERY Christian of you.
            In the words of Alfonso Bedoza’s bandito character in Treasure of Sierra Madre: ‘why don’t you try and be more polite’.

Leave a Reply