VIDEO: Former FBI Agent Recounts His Summer Job With Archbishop Fulton Sheen Ahead of Beatification
OCEAN VIEW, N.J. — The faded and exaggerated cursive on the inside cover of “The Priest Is Not His Own” makes the book one of John Reemmer’s prized possessions.
Among his medals, framed articles and badges from 40 years in law enforcement, 27 of them with the FBI, the book and the man who wrote it have guided Reemmer’s life.
“He was my role model; if I was to be a priest, to be a preacher, he would have been my role model,” Reemmer said.
Reemmer met Archbishop Fulton Sheen as a teenager on his first day of a summer job in the mailroom at the Society for the Propagation of the Faith in 1964. He had seen then-Bishop Sheen’s face on television and heard his name around the dinner table, so riding the elevator with him was a thrill.
“He came in with a big smile, I think someone held the door open for him and he had an aura about him and a smile and his eye, he looked at you and smiled and you kind of instantly knew God I mean, he was a saint, a living saint,” Reemmer said.
Reemmer didn’t know it at the time, but meeting Archbishop Sheen would go on to affect the rest of his life, and the book would change the way he saw himself.
“It helped me really discern what my vocation really was and in a sense, an FBI agent has a vocation. I think Bishop Sheen’s dedication to his work was an inspiration,” he said.
Reemmer left the Propagation of the Faith when Archbishop Sheen did, but his fondest memory has nothing to do with books or television.
“They were obviously missionaries. He introduced them, spoke of their mission, and the short nun knelt down and attempted to kiss his bishop’s ring and he kind of stopped her from kneeling and he knelt down and kissed her hand. That day I saw two saints,” Reemmer said of the day Mother Teresa visited the Propagation of the Faith’s office in Manhattan.
Reemmer sees the future Blessed Fulton Sheen for the friend he was up close and the pioneer he was to millions.
“I don’t think there will ever again be another Bishop Sheen,” he said. “But I’m hopeful that there’ll be someone carrying his cross.”