ST. LOUIS, Mo. – Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen is now “blessed.”
The El Paso-native was the first American bishop to earn the title during a beatification service on Thursday at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis. An estimated 50,000 people attended the service, which included bishops and deacons from the Catholic Church.
Priests in attendance wore special vestments with the initials “JMJ” on the back, a tribute to the way Sheen would sign the blackboard during episodes of his show, “Life Is Worth Living.” The Emmy-winning program in the 1950’s and 1960’s is how Sheen rose to prominence and fame, and became known as “America’s Bishop.”
The relic presented at the ceremony was Sheen’s jawbone, located inside a golden box. It was presented at the service by James Engstrom, the child from Washington whose revival from stillbirth 2010 was attributed to prayers to Fulton Sheen.
The service began with a welcome from Catholic Diocese of Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka, asking Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle of the Philippines for the beatification.
A biography highlighting Sheen’s life was then read. It touched on Sheen’s birth in El Paso in 1895, his graduation from Spalding in Peoria, being ordained in 1919, and his passing in 1979 while praying in a chapel.
A letter written by Pope Leo XIV was then read, in Latin by Tagle and in English by Tylka, to confirm the beatification and Sheen’s new title of “blessed.”
“On behalf of this local church in Peoria and St. Louis, and on behalf of my brother bishops, I wish to express my profound gratitude for the permission to celebrate today the rite of beatification of Blessed Fulton Sheen,” Tylka said after the “blessed” designation.
Tagle then preached about Sheen, calling him a tireless preacher that used modern communication to spread the gospel.
“Once asked by a friend why he became a priest. He replied, “I was called to tell this story, the Gospel, the story of Jesus,’” Tagle said.
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