Where He Stands Today
Fulton Sheen died on 9 December 1979. Almost at once, people began to pray to him.
That is how every cause starts, and it is the only part of the process no committee can arrange. What follows here is the story of what the Church did with that devotion once she noticed it: the petitions, the tribunals, the twenty-two volumes of testimony, the child who came back to life, and the day now fixed on the calendar.
He is presently called Venerable, which means the Church has formally judged that he lived the Christian virtues to a heroic degree. His beatification is set for 24 September 2026. After that, one step remains.
If the titles and stages are unfamiliar, they are explained in plain language here: How the Church Makes a Saint
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1998: Two Men and a Foundation
Nineteen years after his death, two men who had loved the Archbishop decided that someone ought to act. Gregory J. Ladd of Highland, Indiana, and Lawrence F. Hickey of New York founded the Archbishop Fulton John Sheen Foundation.
Its purpose was, and remains, twofold: to make his life, works and thought known to a new generation, and to carry his cause forward.
They went first to Cardinal John O'Connor, then Archbishop of New York, who gave permission to begin gathering material that might one day support a cause. His successor, Cardinal Edward Egan, later allowed the Foundation to approach the Bishop of Peoria, the diocese of Sheen's birth and ordination.
What Had to Be Proved First
Before any bishop may petition Rome, he must be able to show two things about the candidate, and neither can be manufactured.
The first is a reputation for holiness: the settled conviction, especially among those who knew the person, that his life was upright, rich in Christian virtue, and fruitful for others.
The second is a reputation for intercessory power: that people who have prayed to God through him have received real favours, whether a healing, help through a family crisis, or a conversion.
Both had to be documented. The Foundation's first great labour was to gather them, chiefly by finding and interviewing people who had known Sheen personally. It also had to arrange a critical theological review of everything he had ever published, and he had published a great deal.
2002: The Cause Is Opened
In 2002, recognizing Sheen's Midwestern roots, Bishop Daniel R. Jenky, C.S.C., of the Diocese of Peoria formally petitioned the Holy See to open the cause for his beatification and canonization.
Permission was granted. From that moment Fulton Sheen bore the title Servant of God.
2004 to 2008: The Diocesan Inquiry
The investigation was conducted at Peoria over four years.
Witnesses were called and examined under oath. Documents were collected from around the world. Every one of the Archbishop's writings was reviewed by theological censors for anything contrary to faith or morals.
In February 2008 the diocesan phase closed. Twenty-two volumes of testimony and evidence were sealed and sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome. They joined the accounts of two alleged miracles that had already been submitted in 2006.
On 17 October 2008 the Congregation approved the juridical validity of the inquiry, confirming that the diocesan work had been properly done.
2011: The Positio and the First Votes
In Rome the postulator, guided by a relator of the Congregation, assembled the Positio: the single volume that gathers everything found in the diocese into an argument the Church can weigh.
On 25 May 2011 Bishop Jenky presented it to Pope Benedict XVI. The Pope remarked that he had known Archbishop Sheen personally and had worked with him during the Second Vatican Council.
On 28 October 2011 the Particular Congress of Theological Consultors examined the cause and returned a positive verdict.
On 11 December 2011 Monsignor Jason Gray completed a separate diocesan inquiry, this one into an alleged miracle: the restoration of a stillborn child, James Fulton Engstrom, after sixty-one minutes without heartbeat or breath.
2012: Declared Venerable
On 15 May 2012 the Cardinals and Bishops of the Congregation met in ordinary session under Cardinal Angelo Amato. Having heard the report of the relator of the cause, Cardinal Francis Arinze, they declared that the Servant of God had practised the virtues to a heroic degree.
On 28 June 2012 Pope Benedict XVI confirmed their judgment and authorized the decree. Fulton J. Sheen was declared Venerable.
What the Decree Says
The decree was published in the official acts of the Holy See. It opens with a text from the First Letter of Saint Peter, chosen because it seemed to hold his whole life in a few lines:
But even if you should suffer for the sake of righteousness, you are blessed. Do not fear them or be troubled. Rather, honour Christ the Lord as holy in your hearts, always ready to give an answer to anyone who asks you the reason for the hope that is in you.
It then describes him in a single sentence worth keeping: a priest and bishop wholly given over to the glory of God and the salvation of souls, a true apostle of the modern age, who spread the message of the Gospel using the newest instruments of technology, left a deep mark on American society, and carried out his pastoral office with a generous strength of charity.
Its formal declaration is that it is established that the Servant of God Peter John Fulton Sheen, titular Archbishop of Newport and formerly Bishop of Rochester in America, practised to a heroic degree the theological virtues of Faith, Hope and Charity towards God and towards his neighbour, together with the cardinal virtues of Prudence, Justice, Temperance and Fortitude, and the virtues connected with them.
(Acta Apostolicae Sedis, volume 105, 2013, number 6, pages 519 to 522. The decree is in Latin; the renderings above are English translations.)
2019: The Miracle Recognized
The Engstrom case went to Rome and was examined in the ordinary way.
First the medical experts, who are asked only whether medicine can account for what happened. Then the theologians, who ask whether the healing can properly be attributed to this candidate's intercession. Then the Cardinals of the Congregation.
All three approved it unanimously.
On 6 July 2019 Pope Francis officially recognized the miracle attributed to Sheen's intercession, and the way to beatification was open.
2019: Home to Peoria
On 27 June 2019 the body of Archbishop Sheen arrived in Peoria and was laid to rest in the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.
It is the church where he was baptized into the life of the diocese as a boy, where he served Mass for Bishop Spalding, and where he was ordained a priest on 20 September 1919. He had come the whole way round.
2026: The Beatification
The beatification of Venerable Fulton J. Sheen is set for 24 September 2026.
On that day he will receive the title Blessed, and public veneration will be permitted for the first time. He will be given a place in the liturgical calendar, and Catholics will be able to honour him publicly rather than only privately.
What Comes After
One step then remains, and it is the one that depends on ordinary people.
For a Blessed to be canonized, a second miracle is required, and it must occur after the beatification. The reason for that timing is precise: the Church wants evidence that the faithful are now praying to this person and that God is answering.
Which means the next chapter of this cause has not been written by tribunals or consultors. It will be written by whoever brings a real need to Blessed Fulton Sheen, by name, and asks.
Read his life | How the Church makes a saint | Pray with him