He would grow up to become an exemplary priest, bishop diplomat, and cardinal and be elevated to the Throne of Peter on this day as well 61 years ago, taking the name Pope Pius XII . He is the only Pope to become the Sovereign Pontiff on the same day as his birth at the age of 63 in 1939. Though his pontificate was weighted with the terrible Second World War, his Jubilee Year fifty years ago was highlighted by his proclaiming the Assumption of the Blessed Virgin Mary as a Dogma of the Church. They say a picture is worth a thousand words, but the words of Bishop Fulton J. Sheen have been known to launch a thousand images in one's mind, one of the ways this late luminary did so much to evangelize the faith. Because of the urgency of the times and because few there are today who possess the wisdom, simplicity and insight than the late Archbishop who touched millions, we are bringing you daily gems from his writings.
Numbers become the measure of goodness.
The excellence of moral excellence does not reside in any external conformity to a conventional standard, but in an inward disposition under the control of a recognized principle to which we submit whether we agree with it or not.