Grandson of Roscommon emigrants, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is finally on his way to sainthood

Fifty thousand people packed a Missouri stadium to watch a TV star become a Blessed. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the grandson of Roscommon emigrants, is now one step from sainthood.

A grandson of emigrants from Croghan, County Roscommon, has been declared Blessed by the Catholic Church, placing him a single step away from canonization. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen, the Emmy-winning broadcaster who drew tens of millions of American viewers to his prime-time television program, was beatified on Thursday, September 24, before an estimated 50,000 worshippers at The Dome arena in St. Louis, Missouri.

A ceremony 24 years in the making

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, presided at the Mass on behalf of Pope Leo XIV. In his apostolic letter declaring Sheen Blessed, the pope described him as an "untiring preacher of the Gospel through modern means of communication", according to the Roscommon Herald.

Tagle told the congregation that Sheen's holiness rested not on his fame but on his closeness to Christ. "That's the root of blessedness, communion with Jesus," he said, in remarks reported by The Pillar. Praising Sheen's role in leading others to faith, the cardinal also exclaimed, "Blessed are you, porter to the door of God's house!" as recorded by Vatican News.

The cause had been driven since 2002 by the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois. Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, announcing in February that the Vatican had approved the beatification, described Sheen as "one of the greatest voices of evangelization" of the 20th century.

The Roscommon connection

Sheen's maternal grandparents, John and Mary Fulton, were natives of Croghan. Their daughter Delia married Newton Sheen, himself the son of Irish-born parents. John Fulton emigrated in 1855, settling in Akron Township in Peoria County before sending for Mary.

The future archbishop was born Peter John Sheen on May 8, 1895, in El Paso, Illinois, the oldest of four sons, and came to prefer the name Fulton, his mother's maiden name. The switch happened at the school gate. When he was enrolled in the parochial school, his grandfather Fulton gave the boy the name Fulton, and that is how the Croghan family name survived.

Sheen returned to the village repeatedly. On April 20, 1952, while serving as Auxiliary Bishop of New York, he rededicated the rebuilt Church of St. Michael in Croghan, and villagers presented him with an inscribed blackthorn stick and an antique flute said to have been played by his grandfather. He also called into his grandmother's house nearby. 

Oliver Donagher, a retired principal of Croghan National School, recalled a later visit in the early 1960s. He remembered Sheen as "very sociable, speaking to people all along the road to the church", he told The Irish Times.

The Irish link reached American popular culture, too. The actor Ramón Antonio Gerardo Estévez, whose mother was Irish, took the professional name Martin Sheen in honor of the archbishop.

From a Chicago altar to 30 million viewers

Sheen served as an altar boy at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria, attended Spalding Institute, then studied at St. Viator College in Illinois and Saint Paul Seminary in Minnesota before his ordination on September 20, 1919. Beginning in 1930 with his Sunday night NBC radio program "The Catholic Hour", he became a household name, later building an audience of millions with the television program Life Is Worth Living, broadcast from New York's Adelphi Theatre from 1952.

He made the cover of Time magazine in 1952 and won an Emmy as most outstanding personality, with further nominations in 1953 and 1957, by which point his audience stood at 30 million. He died in 1979, aged 84. For 16 years, he also served as national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, raising funds to build the Church across the globe.

The miracle of 61 minutes

The miracle that cleared the way involved a home birth outside Peoria. In September 2010, Bonnie Engstrom delivered her son, James, who had no detectable pulse for 61 minutes. His parents, Bonnie and Travis, prayed for Sheen's intercession.

"When the midwife caught him and placed him in my arms, he was stillborn," Bonnie Engstrom wrote in a commentary published at Fox News and quoted by the National Catholic Register. Speaking to KSDK, she recalled the name she repeated through that hour, "Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen." After 61 minutes without a pulse, the boy's heart started to beat. James Fulton Engstrom is now a teenager, and the Church is currently evaluating six further miracles attributed to Sheen in the search for a second.

A dispute that stalled the cause

Progress was frozen for years by a disagreement over where Sheen should rest. His remains lay in a crypt at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York for 35 years, and the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Peoria fought over them, with Cardinal Timothy Dolan refusing in 2014 to allow the remains to be transported for the exhumation required before beatification. Sheen was finally interred at St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria in 2019.

A separate six-year delay followed a Rochester review of his role in priests' assignments, though no allegations against Sheen came to light. 

Relics now on the road

At the beatification Mass, James Fulton Engstrom presented Cardinal Tagle with a first-class relic, Sheen's mandible, or jawbone. "Using the jawbone is very significant because of its ability to communicate the faith," Bishop Tylka told the National Catholic Register.

Two American dioceses closely tied to Sheen have received substantial relics. New York, where he was an auxiliary bishop from 1951 until 1966, and Rochester, where he was diocesan bishop from 1966 to 1969, were each given a bone from one of his hands, chosen because of the familiar image of him writing "JMJ" on his television blackboard. Tylka presented the Rochester relic to Bishop John Bonnici on September 29 at Sacred Heart Cathedral, where Sheen had been installed in 1966, and Bonnici plans to take it on a tour of the diocese so Catholics can venerate it. A further major relic is due to be presented to Pope Leo XIV in Rome on October 5.

The Pope who watched TV

Pope Leo XIV, who grew up in the Chicago suburbs, addressed the beatification while flying to Paris the following day. "We watched him as a family," he said, in comments carried by the Catholic Standard. The 71-year-old pope also joked, "I'm that old." The first American pope was elected last year on Sheen's birthday.