ST. LOUIS (AP) — As tens of thousands of Catholic worshippers stood Thursday in a football stadium-turned-temporary cathedral, all eyes focused on a teenage boy walking solemnly toward the makeshift altar, accompanied by his parents and siblings.
James Fulton Engstrom carried an ornate vessel containing the relics of his namesake, the man whom the Catholic Church credits with his miraculous survival as a newborn — Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who died
in 1979.
It was a highlight of a lengthy ceremony of beatification for the famed 20th century TV prelate, who will now be known as Blessed Fulton Sheen — one step away from sainthood.
Catholic devotees converged on St. Louis for the afternoon ceremony, taking place at the Dome at America’s Center after years of delays. The indoor stadium was chosen because there wasn’t a venue large enough in his home Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, to accommodate the anticipated crowd.
The ceremony comes 16 years to the month since James was born at home without a pulse and was rushed to the hospital, even as his parents and others prayed earnestly and asked Sheen to add his heavenly prayers, following the Catholic tradition of seeking the intercessions of departed holy people.
After a formal inquiry, the Catholic Church determined that James' resuscitation — when medical workers were about to declare him dead — was a miracle attributable to Sheen's prayers. To qualify for beatification, the Vatican typically requires one miracle attributed to the candidate.
James' mother, Bonnie Engstrom, said before the ceremony that she expected it would feel like a “foretaste of heaven.”
She said she’d been praying to Sheen throughout her pregnancy, and “it was just a very natural thing in the hardest hour of our life” to seek his help.
The presentation of the relics, placed on a pedestal by the altar, was a highlight of a lengthy service that began with a formal procession of hundreds of priests and scores of bishops, lasting more than half an hour and accompanied by robust organ, choral and orchestral music.
About 50,000 tickets were distributed, according to organizers. The halls and exhibit areas were thronged in the morning by pilgrims — priests in cassocks, nuns in habits, families with young children in tow, elderly worshipers who recalled watching Sheen on TV. Scores of bishops, a thousand priests and hundreds of religious order members, seminarians and deacons participated.
Many thronged exhibit booths or stood in long lines to give confession. Others quietly meditated throughout the morning in a makeshift chapel in front of a Eucharist displayed on an altar, including some who knelt on the concrete floor. Bishops have been seeking to promote this traditional devotion, which Sheen practiced regularly.
The Vatican’s top evangelization official, Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle, the lead celebrant for the Mass, brought greetings from Pope Leo XIV, calling him Sheen’s “fellow Illinoisan.” Tagle called Sheen a model for evangelization, or sharing the faith.
Sheen was once a regular presence in the living rooms of millions of Americans — including that of the future pontiff, who says he watched Sheen's broadcasts while growing up in Chicago.
Attendees, many too young to have seen Sheen's broadcasts, said they’ve taken inspiration from his books and online videos.
“There’s just a revival in the American church as a whole,” said Joseph Punswick, a seminarian from the Diocese of Kansas City, Kansas. “To have an American pope, to have an American beatified man, is amazing to see. Look around. You see kids, you see young families, you see college kids.”
Other attendees, such as Mary Chalupsky of Milford, Connecticut, recalled watching Sheen’s original TV programs. “He brought so many to the faith,” she said.
The service reflected the modern media era, with a livestreamed liturgy and electrical signs urging attendees to use the social media hashtag #celebratesheen.
Sheen was a pioneering radio priest who quickly adopted the burgeoning medium of television in the 1950s, when he began hosting the Emmy-winning program, “Life is Worth Living.” Dressed in a cassock, cape and skullcap, he stood at a chalkboard and delivered moral and religious lessons without a narrow Catholic focus.
Sheen was born in 1895 in the small town of El Paso, Illinois, and raised in Peoria. After becoming a priest and earning a doctorate in philosophy, he became a professor at The Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C.
He became known for his academic lectures and his plainspoken addresses from the pulpit and the broadcast studio. He often signed off with the benediction, “God love you.”
Sheen appeared in a Time magazine cover article, and he guided celebrities and others converting to Catholicism.
He met with popes and spoke at the reformist Second Vatican Council. He railed against communism, though he opposed the Vietnam War.
Sheen raised funds and traveled the world on behalf of Catholic missions. He served as a bishop in New York state, retiring as an archbishop. After his death at 84, he was buried at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York until his niece won a court battle in 2019 to move his body to Peoria’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception, which now draws pilgrims to his tomb.
The late Pope Francis approved the beatification, attributing to Sheen the miracle of James' resuscitation.
James was born at home without a pulse in September 2010 and rushed to the hospital. Medical workers attempted to resuscitate him but were about to declare him deceased when his heart began beating normally, Engstrom and other witnesses said.
Bonnie Engstrom said she and her husband chose Sheen for James' patron after discovering the prelate's old videos, adding that Sheen's Midwestern-accented voice reminded her of her grandfather and great-grandfather. “He’s like a local boy,” she said at a news conference.
James, who just turned 16, has a devotion to Sheen, but he's largely avoiding the media spotlight. “He’s a delightful young man, but he’s still just a teenage boy, and he needs to be given the space and the grace to have his own journey of life," his mother said.
The beatification was originally scheduled for 2019, but the Vatican delayed the ceremony. The Diocese of Rochester, which Sheen briefly led in the 1960s, requested the delay out of caution, due to legal investigations taking place then into the oversight of priests accused of sexual abuse across New York state.
Church officials later concluded that Sheen’s record gave no cause for further delay, and plans for the ceremony resumed. Pope Leo approved the beatification earlier this year.
Monsignor Jason Gray, executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, said church investigators review records and interview witnesses before determining whether a healing qualifies as a miracle. He said there are now six more cases under investigation; a second miracle would qualify Sheen for sainthood under Vatican rules.
Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said he believes the wait for canonization will be shorter than for the beatification, especially with an Illinois-born pope who's “very much aware of who Sheen is and how he influenced his own life.”
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