Dubbed “The Bishop of Television”, Fulton Sheen was born in El Paso, Illinois, into a devout Catholic family of Irish descent. Immediately after finishing high school, he entered St Paul Seminary in Minnesota and was ordained a priest on September 20, 1919, for the Diocese of Peoria at the age of just 24.
Recognised for his academic ability, his bishop, Bishop Edmund Michael Dunne, sent him to the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, where he earned a doctorate in philosophy in 1923.
His doctoral thesis focused on the philosophy of knowledge, particularly the work of Cardinal John Henry Newman. He then joined the Catholic University of America in Washington, DC, in 1926, where he taught philosophy for more than twenty years.
In 1930, he began hosting the radio programme The Catholic Hour on NBC, which aired nationally and continued for two decades. In 1951, Pope Pius XII appointed him auxiliary bishop of New York and titular bishop of Caesariana.
In 1952, he turned to television and began hosting Life Is Worth Living, broadcast on the DuMont Television Network and later ABC. The programme was hugely popular, at its peak attracting an estimated 30 million viewers and earning Sheen the Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Television Personality.
In 1966, Pope Paul VI appointed him bishop of Rochester, New York, where he served until 1969. He continued writing, speaking and recording broadcasts after his retirement. Over his lifetime, he wrote more than 60 books, including Life of Christ (1958), which became a bestseller and remains widely read. In 1969, he was appointed titular archbishop of Newport, Wales, an honorary title recognising his service. He died 10 years later, on December 9, 1979, in New York City at the age of 84.
Soon after his death, devotion to the late bishop grew. Catholics visited the crypt of St Patrick’s Cathedral to pray for his intercession. His home diocese of Peoria began collecting testimonies of his life and holiness and, on June 28, 2002, the diocese formally opened Sheen’s cause for canonisation.
In 2010, the miraculous recovery of James Fulton Engstrom, a baby born without a detectable heartbeat in Illinois, was attributed to Sheen’s intercession. On June 28, 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable, officially recognising that he had lived a life of heroic virtue.
On July 6, 2019, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints promulgated the decree approving the miracle attributed to Sheen. On November 18, 2019, Pope Francis called for the beatification to be held on December 21, 2019, in Peoria.
However, on December 3, 2019, the Diocese of Peoria announced that the Holy See had decided to postpone the service because of concerns among some members of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops about the possibility that abuse-related issues might surface.
The Church in the United States had spent almost two decades rocked by revelations of institutional cover-up of abuse and there were concerns that new information relating to Sheen’s role in episcopal governance might emerge.
This heightened awareness followed the revelations concerning Theodore McCarrick, the former cardinal who had been laicised after credible allegations of abuse.
The December 3 statement from the Diocese of Peoria made the rationale clear, explaining that while there was no credible accusation against Sheen himself, the diocese had “expressed concern about advancing the cause for the beatification of Archbishop Sheen at this time without a further review of his role in priests’ assignments”.
Although a new date and location were not immediately announced, the Diocese of Peoria later confirmed that the Vatican had given approval for the beatification to proceed.
Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s legacy is most notable for his charisma and his ability to use modern media to evangelise.
However, his personal piety and devotion to the Eucharist inspired generations of Catholics, particularly priests, to commit themselves to Christ in the Blessed Sacrament.
He famously encouraged the practice of spending a Holy Hour in front of the Eucharist, crediting it as the “secret of whatever success I have had in my life.”