One of the most popular TV shows in the 1950s was Bishop Fulton J. Sheen, a handsome Catholic priest. I'm not sure how I knew about him because my parents didn't have a TV, but I knew. Everyone knew who he was. He was drawing 30,000,000 viewers a week when our population was only about 172 million and 42 million households had a TV.
The other day I heard a story about him. A man sat down next to him on a plane, and noticing his collar, began to unload on him all his gripes about the church. Just a bunch of hypocrites, liars, losers, pettiness, etc. So Bishop Sheen looked at him and said, "How much did you steal?" Turns out he was an usher at his church and had been dipping into the collection plate (which he confessed to Sheen probably in shock). By then I was in the garage and turned off the radio, but it was probably the end of the story. Might be why he was so popular--he really knew people.
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