Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the Emmy-winning American prelate known for his popular catechetical radio and television programs, was declared blessed on Thursday.
The beatification of Sheen, fondly remembered as “America’s bishop,” took place nearly seven years after it had originally been scheduled to occur.
Cardinal Luis Tagle, pro-prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Evangelization, presided over the beatification Mass, which was held at The Dome at America’s Center in Saint Louis.
Some 50,000 pilgrims were estimated to be in attendance at the Mass, along with more than 80 bishops and hundreds of priests.
Sheen was a university professor and the bishop of Rochester in the late 1960s. However, he was best known for his popular radio and television programs, including the primetime TV show, “Life is Worth Living,” which attracted 30 million viewers per week.
“We are grateful for the heroic witness of this great evangelist, who dedicated his life to the proclamation of the gospel and the support of the mission,” said Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria after the proclamation officially declaring Sheen to be blessed.
“We pray that the Church in the United States and in missionary territories throughout the world will benefit from the noble example of his holiness.”
A relic of Sheen – his jawbone – was presented during the Mass by 16-year-old James Fulton Engstrom and his family.
Engstrom was stillborn in 2010, but miraculously revived after an hour without breath or a heartbeat. His parents had been praying for Sheen’s intercession, and his recovery became the miracle documented by the Vatican to pave the way for Sheen’s beatification.
Tagle’s homily focused on communion with Christ and others as the source of blessedness for a missionary-evangelizer.
“It is for being a zealous and creative evangelizer and advocate for mission that Fulton Sheen is called blessed,” Tagle said.
It may seem strange to refer to an evangelizer or a missionary as “blessed,” he reflected, since “many evangelizers and missionaries, from the beginnings of the Church and up to our time, have suffered rejection, even persecution.”
However, the cardinal continued, Sheen is not called blessed because he was famous, but because he remained faithful to the calling of Christ.
“The missionary-evangelizer is truly blessed, fortunate, and happy because of the gift of communion with Jesus,” Tagle said. “That’s the root of blessedness, communion with Jesus.”
“To choose yourself, and to go wherever you want to go, is not mission and it is not blessedness.”
By laboring humbly with Jesus, a missionary-evangelizer comes to better know his or her own identity, he said.
“Blessed are you when Jesus sees you, knows you, calls you, sends you, and labors with you. Blessed are you when you come to know your true self and mission, because Jesus knows you and you know Jesus.”
Additionally, Tagle said, “the missionary-evangelizer is blessed by the communion with persons and peoples, especially the poor and the vulnerable.”
“For Archbishop Sheen, caring for the poor was not ideological propaganda, but an imperative for the following of Christ, of the joining of the Church and the missions, and of the conversion inspired by the Holy Spirit.”
“As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world,” Tagle said.
The cardinal noted that Jesus sent his followers to preach not to society in the abstract, but to every creature.
“To use preaching as an excuse to avoid concrete persons and to be blind to God’s action in them is not mission. It is not blessedness,” he said.
He also highlighted Sheen’s humility, recounting a story of the archbishop refusing to track the number of conversions attributed to his preaching, because he wanted to avoid the pride of crediting himself over God.
Sheen was ordained a priest in 1919, became a professor at The Catholic University of America, and then a radio host, hosting “The Catholic Hour” on NBC Radio from 1930 until 1950. He was appointed an auxiliary bishop of New York in 1951 and soon after moved into television, hosting “Life is Worth Living” from 1952 until 1957 and “The Fulton Sheen Program” from 1961 until 1968.
Sheen won an Emmy award for his television work.
He became Bishop of Rochester in 1966 and remained in that office until 1969. After his retirement, Pope Paul VI named him a titular archbishop.
Sheen died in 1979, and was initially buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. After a protracted legal battle, Sheen’s remains were moved to Peoria.
The Diocese of Peoria opened the cause for Sheen’s canonization in 2002.
However, the cause faced a number of setbacks, including a five-year legal battle between the Diocese of Peoria and the Archdiocese of New York over Sheen’s mortal remains.
In July 2019, Pope Francis approved a miracle attributed to Sheen, and set December 21, 2019, as the date for the bishop’s prospective beatification.
Sheen came within three weeks of the scheduled beatification in 2019, but things were delayed after Rochester Bishop Salvatore Matano asked the Vatican to postpone the process, over concerns that Sheen — who served as Rochester’s diocesan bishop from 1966 to 1969 — might be accused of mishandling cases of sexual abuse or misconduct.
At specific issue was Gerard Guli, a former Rochester priest, who was accused of abusing adults in the early 1960s — before Sheen arrived in the diocese — and who reportedly asked Sheen for an assignment in 1967.
However, a subsequent investigation confirmed that Sheen had never assigned Guli to ministry. Rather, his successor had done so.
In addition to the Guli case, there was also concern among some officials that there might be new allegations raised against Sheen during the New York Child Victims Act litigation window or the attorney general’s probe into the handling of sexual abuse by New York’s dioceses
However, that litigation window closed and the attorney general probe launched and eventually went dormant without any new allegations being filed against Sheen.
Following the resolution of Rochester’s own bankruptcy proceedings, and the September 2025 approval of a settlement worth roughly $250 million, the Apostolic See moved forward with the cause, approving the September 2026 beatification.
The beatification took place in St. Louis because there were no venues in Peoria large enough to accommodate the crowds seeking to attend.
Life is Worth Living*** is the name of his show.