Francis Joseph Sheed

Francis Joseph Sheed

William M. Klimon

Center for Norbertine Studies

1897

1981

Whereas the late 19th century had seen a proliferation of Protestant translations of the Confessions, the mid-20th century saw a burst of new Catholic versions, among them Dom Roger Huddleston's revision of Sir Tobie Matthew's translation (1923), Vernon J. Bourke's version for the Catholic University of America Press' “Fathers of the Church” series (1953), John K. Ryan's translation for Doubleday (1960), and R.S. Pine-Coffin's translation for Penguin (1961). Notable among them was the work of the Anglo-Australian apologist and publisher Frank Sheed. Sheed was largely responsible, through his publishing house, Sheed & Ward, for bringing continental theology to book-buying, English-speaking Catholics before the Second Vatican Council, and so it seems appropriate that he would also bring a new version of the Confessions to that same group. Sheed had set out to republish Pusey's translation, but had so disliked it that he produced his own translation in six weeks, dictating it to a series of typists in the course of a lecture tour (the first edition was actually the paperback version, followed two months later by a corrected hardcover edition). Nonetheless, his rather “musical” version has found favor with some scholars, like Peter Brown of Princeton, who has helped keep it in print.

REFERENCES: Sheed, pp. 126-29; Brown, p. 487; Hastings.