rome — The Vatican has given the green light, once again, for the canonization of Archbishop Fulton Sheen, a popular radio and television preacher in the United States. The path to holiness has been derailed First by a protracted legal battle over his remains, and then by concerns about how he handled clerical sexual misconduct cases.
After a rare six-year delay to investigate those concerns, it is now possible for Sheen to be beatified in Peoria, Illinois, as originally planned, the Diocese of Peoria announced Monday.
A new date for the ceremony was not immediately announced. But the Vatican’s approval now paves the way for the Illinois-born Sheen to be beatified during the papacy. Illinois born Pope Leo XIV.
“The Holy See has informed me that the case of the Most Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen can move forward for beatification,” Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said in a written statement and a video on the diocese and Sheen Foundation websites. “We are working with the Vatican’s Department for the Causes of Saints to determine the details of the upcoming beatification.”
Sheen was a very effective evangelist in the American church in the twentieth century, and in some ways pioneered television evangelism with his 1950s television series Life is Worth Living. According to the Catholic University of America, where he studied and taught before becoming a bishop, Sheen won an Emmy Award, appeared on the cover of Time magazine and “became one of the most influential Catholics of the 20th century.”
It was Pope Francis Miracle confirmed Sheen’s intercession is credited on July 6, 2019 and his beatification is set for December 21 of that year in Peoria. But with less than three weeks’ notice, the Vatican postponed the ceremony indefinitely.
She acted after the Diocese of Rochester, New York, where Sheen served as bishop from 1966-1969. Request further investigation During Shen’s tenure and his “role in the functions of the priesthood.”
Concerns focused on Sheen’s handling of two cases involving priests accused of sexual misconduct. Sheen has never been accused of abusing himself. A senior legal affairs official from Peoria, Monsignor James Cross, said in 2019 that the investigation cleared Sheen of any wrongdoing. Cross later complained that the Diocese of Rochester was “sabotaging” the case, and wrote a lengthy article that was posted on Sheen’s official beatification website but later deleted.
Peoria Bishop Tilka’s statement did not mention the concerns that led to the delay in 2019.
The 2019 investigation was the latest hurdle in Sheen’s case, coming after a costly, years-long legal battle between Sheen’s relatives in Peoria and the Archdiocese of New York City over his final resting place.
Sheen, who died in 1979, was buried under the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. His remains were returned to Peoria in 2019 after a court ruled that Sheen’s niece could bury him there.
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