A New York judge has granted the New York archdiocese a temporary
stay of a court order calling for the transfer of the remains of
Archbishop Fulton Sheen from New York to Peoria, Illinois.
The New York archdiocese had opposed the moving of the late
archbishop’s remains, and appealled the court order.
Judge Arlene Bluth
granted the stay pending a hearing on that appeal.
An attorney for the
New York archdiocese expressed confidence that the appeal would be
successful; a spokesman for the Peoria diocese suggested that the appeal
could be quickly dismissed.
Archbishop Sheen, who gained national fame as a preacher and
television personality in the 1950s, is bured in the crypt of St.
Patrick’s cathedral in New York, and the archdiocese had insisted that
this was his wish.
His family, however, showed that in his will the
archbishop had indicated a desire to be buried in a cemetery in Queens,
New York.
In her November ruling authorizing the transfer of the prelate’s
remains, the judge said that it was “understandable and important” that
the family now wished to have Archbishop Sheen buried in Peoria, since
the move would resolve an ecclesiastical conflict that has blocked the
cause for the archbishop’s beatification.
The Peoria diocese, where Fulton Sheen was born and ordained to the
priesthood, had promoted the cause for his beatification.
In April 2014,
a Vatican panel approved the authenticity of a miracle attributed to
his intercession, fulfilling the requirements for his beatification.
However, the process ran into a roadblock when the Peoria diocese asked
for the transfer of the archbishop’s body in preparation for the
beatification ceremony, and the New York archdiocese refused.