The Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen will be beatified Sept. 24 in St. Louis, marking a step toward sainthood for the televangelist, lecturer, author and educator who served as the sixth bishop of the Diocese of Rochester in the late 1960s.
Here's what to know:
Cardinal Luis Tagle will preside over the Mass that will give Sheen the title of blessed.
Rochester Bishop John Bonnici will participate along with more than 70 other bishops and cardinals.
The Mass will begin at 2 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 24, at The Dome at America's Center in St. Louis, the former home of the St. Louis Rams.
An expo on Sheen will take place that day. Bonnici will bring Sheen's crozier and chalice.
Bishop Louis Tylka of the Diocese of Peoria, which is spearheading the canonization
drive, said many people were disappointed by his decision to move the beatification to a site larger than any Peoria has. He told them, "Fulton Sheen may be our native son, and we're certainly proud to claim him. But Sheen is not for Peoria. Sheen is for the church and for the world. And so we have to share him with the church and the world."
How to watch Sheen beatification Mass on TV
The EWTN television network will air the Mass live, with a preshow beginning at 10 a.m., and will repeat the show at 10 p.m. It will air other shows about Sheen on earlier and later days. Relevant Radio and the website celebratesheen.com also will air the beatification service, with the site adding a novena preceding it.
"What I like to say about Archbishop Fulton Sheen is I've come to know and understand he's already a saint. We're just trying to catch up," Tylka said.
Fulton Sheen relics to be taken to Rochester, NYC
Tylka then will take first-class Sheen relics – body parts – to Rochester, New York City and to Pope Leo XIV at the Vatican, in that order. Rochester will be first because of his rank as bishop, Bonnici said; the Archdiocese of New York will receive a relic because Sheen served as auxiliary bishop there before his tenure in Rochester.
Bonnici will receive a relic he described as "substantial" during a Mass at 7 p.m. Tuesday, Sept. 29, at Sacred Heart Cathedral, 296 Flower City Park, where Sheen was installed as bishop and often preached. He then will take the relic to several sites around the diocese, where he will celebrate a Mass with local priests. He said a side altar will eventually be created to honor Sheen at Sacred Heart.Sheen is the first Diocese of Rochester resident to be beatified and the second Venerable Servant of God. The Ven. Monsignor Nelson Baker, who is honored at Our Lady of Victory National Shrine & Basilica in Buffalo, which he built, served in Corning.
In a letter to the diocese, Bonnici asked everyone to pray daily to Sheen.
Each Mass on Bonnici's tour will begin at 7 p.m. The dates will be:
- Thursday, Oct. 1: St. Stephen Church, 48 Pulteney St., Geneva.
- Wednesday, Oct. 7: St. John the Evangelist Parish, 55 Martha St., Spencerport.
- Tuesday, Oct, 13: St. Mary, 4 Avon-Geneseo Road, Geneseo
- Wednesday, Oct. 28: St. Joseph, 43 Gebhardt Road, Penfield.
- Thursday, Oct. 29: St. Mary Our Mother, 816 W. Broad St., Horseheads.
- Wednesday, Nov. 4: Immaculate Conception, 113 N. Geneva St., Ithaca.
Fulton Sheen's life
Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, in 1895, and his parents later moved to nearby Peoria so he could attend a Catholic school. In 1913, he graduated from Spalding Institute, a now-closed high school that the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation hopes to move its museum into in the next few years.He attended the now-defunct St. Viator's College in Illinois, then St. Paul Seminary in Minneapolis. He was ordained in Peoria on Sept. 20, 1919. He later received degrees from Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., and the University of Louvain in Belgium. After serving as a parish priest in a poor section of Peoria for less than a year, he returned to Catholic University as a professor.After a few years, he spent weekends in New York City, doing radio broadcasts, teaching converts and preaching regularly at St. Patrick's Cathedral. He was invited to speak in many places, including Rochester, Elmira and Cornell University.
In 1950, Sheen was named national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, and in 1951 he was consecrated as a bishop and named an auxiliary bishop of New York while continuing as the society's director.
The first of his three television shows, "Life is Worth Living," began in 1952 and attracted millions of viewers. He donated the salary to charity. All the while, he was writing; by the end of his life he had written 66 books, plus numerous pamphlets and columns.
Sheen participated in the Second Vatican Council from 1962-1965 and served as bishop of Rochester from late 1966 to 1969, becoming an archbishop just before he left. He then returned to New York City, where he died in 1979.
Sainthood drive for Fulton Sheen
In 1996, Gregory Ladd co-founded the Archbishop Sheen Foundation to push for Sheen's canonization as a saint. In 1999, Cardinal John O’Connor of New York City gave approval for Sheen’s supporters to start collecting information that could be used as evidence for sainthood. However, the process stalled when he died in 2000.
In 2002, the foundation asked then-Peoria Bishop Daniel Jenky, CSC, to take up the cause within the church. He agreed after careful study to begin an investigation, which included examining Sheen's 66 books, television and radio shows and other writings and talks.
On Feb. 3, 2008, Monsignor Richard Soseman completed the diocese's investigation, including not only Sheen's writings but also thousands of pages of testimony from witnesses. Next, the Congregation for the Causes of the Saints in the Vatican concluded that Sheen had heroic virtues.
Pope Benedict XVI declared Sheen a "Venerable Servant of God" on June 28, 2012.
How Catholic Church determines miracles
Before a beatification, usually a miracle must be attributed to that person's intercession with God, and that miracle, often a healing, is subjected to rigorous investigations. "It can't just be rare," Gray said. "… It can't be one in a million, because if, because maybe you're the lucky one in a million, maybe that's what it is. So it really has to be … scientifically unexplainable."
On Dec. 11, 2011, Gray completed a diocesan inquiry into an alleged miracle attributed to Sheen's intercession. James Fulton Engstrom, who was stillborn Sept. 16, 2010, came to life after 61 minutes without heartbeat or respiration. An MRI showed the lack of oxygen had damaged his brain; when he was 3 months old, there were no signs of damage, his mother, Bonnie Engstrom wrote in her book, "61 Minutes to a Miracle." Medical experts and theologians approved the healing as a miracle in 2014. “He helps me in my life,” James Fulton Engstrom, then 15, told the National Catholic Register in February. “I pray to him and feel like he helps me.”
On July 6, 2019, Pope Francis recognized that miracle and approved Sheen's beatification.
Another approved miracle will be required for Sheen to be canonized. Gray said several cases are being investigated.
Fulton J. Sheen Museum
The Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation operates the Fulton J. Sheen Museum, featuring a wide variety of artifacts from Sheen's life. It includes a media room, with his recordings and a studio for broadcasts and podcasts; a reading room with his extensive publications; conference rooms; outdoor areas and a gift shop.
It is at 419 NE Madison Ave., Peoria, in the Spalding Pastoral Center, at the site where he graduated from the Cathedral grade school and Spalding High School. Its regular hours are 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monday through Friday and 9 a.m. to noon Saturday. Admission is free.
For more information, go to https://www.celebratesheen.com/museum.
Laura Nichols is a staff writer for the Rochester (N.Y.) Democrat and Chronicle.
This article originally appeared on Rochester Democrat and Chronicle: Fulton Sheen's sainthood journey reaches a major milestone Sept. 24
