Sheen Beatification Links a St. Louis Celebration to a Claimed Miracle

Sheen Beatification Links a St. Louis Celebration to a Claimed Miracle
Tens of thousands of worshippers attended the beatification Mass for Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis on September 24, according to accounts of the ceremony. Pope Leo XIV’s decree declared that Sheen “may henceforth be called blessed,” and Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, serving as papal legate, read the apostolic letter during the Mass.

The reporting frames the occasion chiefly as a Church celebration of Sheen’s legacy as a preacher and broadcaster. His feast day was set for December 9, the anniversary of his death in 1979. One account also notes that the date coincides with the first reported apparition of Our Lady of Guadalupe to St. Juan Diego in 1531.

A second emphasis was the participation of James Fulton Engstrom, whose survival was formally recognized by the Catholic Church as the miracle required for Sheen’s beatification. Engstrom, born in 2010, was reported to have been without signs of life for 61 minutes before reviving without lasting abnormalities that the account says medical science could not explain.

Engstrom presented a first-class relic — Sheen’s jawbone — to Cardinal Tagle. Bishop Louis Tylka said the choice carried particular meaning because of Sheen’s public speaking: “Using the jawbone is very significant because of his ability to communicate the faith.” Other bones from Sheen’s hands were designated for the Archdiocese of New York and the Diocese of Rochester, where he held episcopal roles, while smaller relics were intended for public veneration by Catholic institutions.

The accounts therefore link the formal Church process, including relics and a recognized miracle, with a broader remembrance of Sheen’s media work. A reposted statement attributed to President Donald Trump similarly described him as a priest who “pioneered the use of media to speak the truth, preach the Gospel, and bring many souls closer to Christ.”

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