Fulton Sheen Declared Blessed in St. Louis Ceremony Attended by Thousands
Tens of thousands gathered in St. Louis as the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen was beatified, a key step toward possible sainthood.
The late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, once a familiar face on American television, was declared Blessed on Thursday during a beatification ceremony in St. Louis, Missouri. The service, held at the Dome at America's Center, drew tens of thousands of Catholic devotees and marked a significant step toward possible sainthood.
The ceremony took place after years of delays and was moved to the indoor stadium because no venue in Sheen's home Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, could accommodate the expected crowd. Organizers with the diocese and the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation said about 50,000 tickets had been distributed by Thursday.
A temporary altar was set up on the stage, backed by photographs that included Sheen's tomb at the Peoria cathedral, now a pilgrimage site. Filipino Cardinal Luis Tagle offered a prayer during the service, asking that the faithful follow Sheen's example of prayer and devotion.
Sheen, a pioneering radio priest, embraced television in the 1950s with his program "Life is Worth Living." Dressed in a cassock, cape and skullcap, he used a chalkboard to deliver moral and religious lessons that reached beyond a Catholic audience. Among those who watched his broadcasts was the future Pope Leo XIV, who has said he tuned in while growing up in Chicago.
After his death at 84, Sheen was buried at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York. In 2019, his niece won a court battle to move his remains to the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, where he had served as a young altar server and was later ordained a priest. Pilgrims now place crucifixes and other items on his marble tomb, giving them status as relics.
Beatification normally requires the Vatican to recognize one miracle attributed to the candidate's heavenly intercession. The late Pope Francis approved the beatification, attributing to Sheen the resuscitation of an infant born in 2010 without a pulse who was revived after lengthy efforts by medical workers. The child, now a teenager named James Fulton Engstrom, was slated to present relics of Sheen at the ceremony, accompanied by his family, who had sought Sheen's intercession for healing.
The beatification was originally scheduled for 2019 but was delayed by the Vatican. Pope Leo XIV approved the beatification earlier this year.