Somehow, Bishop Fulton J. Sheen had never seemed an appropriate choice to head the diocese of Rochester, N.Y., with its 362,000 souls. Indeed, it was no secret in the church that the man once believed in line to succeed the late Francis Cardinal Spellman was restless and unhappy in his out-of-the-way post. As one friend expressed it: "After being on the heights of Mount Tabor all his life, the bishop found his Calvary in Rochester." Even so, his resignation last week at age 74, after less than three years in his first important pastoral post, came as a surprise.
Before Pope Paul...