Televangelist Archbishop Fulton Sheen beatified in St Louis — one step closer to sainthood

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ST LOUIS (RNS) — In the former home of the NFL’s St. Louis Rams on Thursday (Sept. 24), there was an unusual option beside the popcorn and soft drinks: T-shirts bearing the face of a Catholic archbishop.

Tens of thousands of attendees filled The Dome at America’s Center and many more joined online to view the formal, lengthy ceremony celebrating the beatification of Archbishop Fulton Sheen — who now holds the title “blessed” and is one step closer to sainthood. Sometimes called the first televangelist in the United States, Sheen’s beatification was presided over by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a media star in the Philippines and a Vatican evangelization official. It came after the Vatican determined Sheen had lived a life of “heroic virtue” and that a mother’s 2010 prayer for Sheen’s intercession was responsible for the miraculous recovery of her baby, James Fulton Engstrom, who spent 61 minutes without a heartbeat after birth.

Sheen, who died in 1979, beat out Lucille Ball for the Emmy Award for Most Outstanding Personality in 1953. His radio show, “The Catholic Hour,” and television…