ROME — The Vatican has given the green light, again, to beatify Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the popular U.S. radio and TV preacher whose path to sainthood was derailed first by a lengthy court battle over his remains and then by concerns about how he handled clergy sexual misconduct cases.
After a rare six-year delay to investigate the concerns, Sheen’s beatification can now take place in Peoria, Ill., as originally planned, the Peoria diocese announced Monday.
No new date for the ceremony, the last major step before possible sainthood, was immediately announced. But the Vatican’s approval now sets the stage for the Illinois-born Sheen to be beatified during the pontificate of the Illinois-born Pope Leo XIV.
“The Holy See has informed me that the cause for the Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen can proceed to beatification,” Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said in a written and video statement on the websites of the diocese and the Sheen foundation. “We are working with the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints at the Vatican to determine the details for the upcoming beatification.”
Sheen was an enormously effective evangelizer in the 20th century U.S. church, who in some ways pioneered televangelism with his 1950s television series, “Life is Worth Living.” According to Catholic University of America, where he studied and taught before he was made a bishop, Sheen won an Emmy Award, was featured on the cover of Time magazine “and became one of the most influential Catholics of the 20th century.”
Pope Francis had confirmed a miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession on July 6, 2019, and had set his beatification for Dec. 21 that year in Peoria. But with less than three weeks’ notice, the Vatican postponed the ceremony indefinitely.
It acted after the diocese of Rochester, N.Y., where Sheen served as bishop from 1966-1969, asked for further investigation into Sheen’s tenure and “his role in priests’ assignments.”
The concerns focused on Sheen’s handling of two cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct. Sheen was never accused of abuse himself. A top canonical affairs official from Peoria, Msgr. James Kruse, said in 2019 that an investigation had cleared Sheen of any wrongdoing. Kruse later complained that the Rochester diocese was “sabotaging” the cause, writing a lengthy essay that had been posted on the official Sheen beatification site but later taken down.
Peoria Bishop Tylka’s statement made no reference to the concerns that prompted the delay in 2019.
The 2019 investigation came after an expensive, years-long legal battle between Sheen’s relatives in Peoria and the New York City archdiocese over his final resting place.
Sheen, who died in 1979, was interred under the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. His remains were returned to Peoria in 2019 after a court ruled Sheen’s niece could bury him there.
Among those celebrating the Vatican’s new green light to beatify Sheen was the Pontifical Missions Societies in the U.S., the Vatican’s main missionary fundraising office in the U.S., which Sheen headed from 1950-1966. Sheen left most of his patrimony, including writings and audio recordings, to the organization, which raises money for the Catholic Church in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other mission areas.
“It is profoundly moving that, in God’s providence, the first U.S.–born pope is able to advance the cause of his fellow Illinois native, the most iconic evangelizer ever produced by the American Church,” Msgr. Roger Landry, national director of the office, said in a statement.
Winfield writes for the Associated Press.
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