by Marie-Lucile Kubacki
St. Louis – ST LOUIS, Missouri, Sept. 24 — For many pilgrims, the day began early. Some hurried towards the entrances of America’s Center, the vast complex in downtown St. Louis, close to the stadium of the city’s legendary baseball team, the Cardinals.
Inside the sprawling convention centre, which seems almost a small city, an exhibition traces the life of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. A recreation of a typical American living room features a television showing black-and-white footage of Life Is Worth Living, his 1950s programme. On a table lay copies of Life magazine, including one devoted to communism — a reminder of a subject Sheen addressed frequently on air.
The expo brings together an eclectic collection of exhibitors: sellers of Sheen devotional items, including rosaries, commemorative coins and holy cards; a stall offering Lego figures of priests celebrating Mass, among them a collector’s figure of Sheen; universities promoting their programmes; religious orders, associations and booksellers.
At a U.S. Army chaplaincy stand, children crowded forward to collect black-and-yellow plastic bracelets bearing the slogan “Be all you can be.”
Outside, a long line for confession stretches beneath the gaze of groups gathered around tables, warming their hands on large cups of American coffee.
Black-and-white memories
Pilgrims travelled from 49 U.S. states and more than 10 countries, according to Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka, who says during the press conference, that he had seen strong interest from Italy, Poland and Brazil. “We’re from the Diocese of Peoria, and my daughter flew in from the Archdiocese of Seattle to come to this event,” Colleen Murphy, a bubbly, neatly coiffed woman in her seventies, tells Fides. Murphy recalled watching Sheen’s television programme beside her father as a child. “When you looked at his eyes, I felt like he was just talking to you and to no one else,” she said. She is drawn, too, to his devotion to Mary. Murphy said she asks Sheen to watch over and protect her children and grandchildren.
For María Cervantes, a catechist from St. Boniface parish in Lafayette, Indiana, who speaks spanish, Sheen is “an example of how to reach holiness in an ordinary life,” through spirituality and attention to everyday moments. She explains that her parish priest, introduced a group of catechists to Sheen and helped them organize the trip. That’s how she came to St. Louis.
Jim Sabatier and Marty Stark travelled from Oxford, Mississippi. Sabatier remembers watching Sheen on black-and-white television with his parents and seven siblings. «I just remember him taking his cape and just… he was really special indeed,” recalls Stark. “I was struck by his eyes too and his voice and I remember him writing on the blackboard with this very neat handwriting».
All are walking to the vast Dome at America’s Center, a venue built to host major sporting events and other large gatherings, that has been prepared for a day of prayer and celebration. The programme began hours before the beatification Mass, with speakers, music and testimonies intended to bring pilgrims into a spirit of prayer. The Dome’s scale make the gathering feel all the more striking: despite the tens of thousands present, the atmosphere inside remained largely quiet and attentive.
Before the ceremony, Bishop Tylka describes the beatification as the culmination of years of prayer and months of preparation. “Through him we were able to encounter the Lord and that wonderful message that he always shares: God loved you,” he says. He calls the occasion significant not only for the Diocese of Peoria or the U.S. Church, but for the Church worldwide. A zucchetto worn by Sheen has now been placed on the stage during the pre-Mass programme.
“Blessed are you when the Risen One works with you”
At the Mass, James Fulton Engstrom — the child whose recovery, after remaining without a heartbeat or breathing for 61 minutes, was recognized as the miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession — is to present a relic: a piece of Sheen’s jawbone. During the press conference, his mother, Bonnie Engstrom, explained the family had named their son after Sheen and entrusted him to the Archbishop’s protection before his birth.
The procession now entering into the Dome brings a long line of clergy and bishops before the congregation. 89 bishops had registered, along with about 1,000 priests, 850 religious, 850 seminarians and 260 deacons. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, who presides over the celebration, appears visibly moved as he advances. In his homily, he describes the beatification not as a tribute to celebrity, but as recognition of a life shaped by mission: proclaiming the Gospel and serving others, particularly the poor and vulnerable.
Sheen’s popularity as a broadcaster and author, the Cardinal suggests, did not itself make him blessed. Rather, his significance lay in the One to whom he pointed – Christ – and in the relationships he built with people. «To preach your own wisdom, rather than that of Jesus, is falsifying the word of God: it is not mission; it is not blessedness» warned the Cardinal. «Blessed and beautiful are your feet when you announce God’s salvation and peace, according to the prophet Isaiah. To journey on land, water and air while proclaiming destructive words and doing violent acts is not mission; it is not blessedness. Blessed are you when the Risen Lord works with you and confirms the Gospel you preach through miraculous signs.» Adding just after: «To be self-sufficient and self-affirming is a bad sign; it is not mission, it is not blessedness. A missionary evangelizer, therefore, is known by Jesus and is called to know Jesus and His Gospel, is called to work humbly with Jesus. And along this journey, a missionary evangelizer gets to know oneself in Jesus. Blessed are you when Jesus sees you, knows you, calls you, sends you and works with you. Blessed are you when you come to know your true self and mission because Jesus knows you and you know Jesus. Blessed are the authentic missionary evangelizers.»
A Blessed “porter”
The Cardinal recalls Sheen’s response when Pope Pius XII asked how many people he had converted. Sheen replied that he had never counted them, so as not to be tempted to think the conversions were his. He described himself as “simply a porter” who could sometimes lead people to the open door of God’s house.
For the Cardinal, that image captures a central quality of Sheen’s ministry: humility about the preacher’s role and confidence in the message. Cardinal Tagle also highlights Sheen’s concern for poverty, quoting his famous 1964 intervention at the Second Vatican Council : «As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world». At these words, some of the faithful nod quietly.
The beatification and the wounds of the city and the world
Although the beatification is taking place downtown, in a lively, largely commercial area, conditions vary across the city. The City of St. Louis had a poverty rate of 20.6% in 2024, compared with 12.1% nationally. Its property-crime rate was also substantially above the national average. In 2024, St. Louis recorded 150 homicides; its homicide rate ranked among the highest, and first in one study’s sample of 24 cities, but fell in 2025.
The city remains marked by deep social and racial divisions, shaped in part by decades of segregation and neighborhood inequality
The Cardinal then recalls a story Sheen himself told, that happened during a visit to people with leprosy in Uganda. Sheen had brought silver crosses to give them; when he recoiled at the sight of a man’s damaged hand, he realized that the cross he offered represented a Christ who had embraced human vulnerability. He then touched and held the man’s hand, The Cardinal recounts, describing Sheen as “the 501st person with leprosy.” Before concluding : «Blessed is the earthen vessel that draws power from Jesus! Blessed is the evangelizer converted by beholding and touching the wounds of the Risen Christ in wounded brothers and sisters. Blessed is the missionary who digs deep into the heart of the poor to meet Jesus there. Blessed Fulton J. Sheen!»
The five-colour Rosary
After those words, the Eucharist liturgy continues in a silence that seemed almost surprising given the size of the crowd. Communion lines moved slowly and solemnly; pilgrims then return to their places for the conclusion of the Mass.
Among the pilgrims is Michael Krzyzanowski, a U.S. Army veteran who first heard of Sheen while in seminary in the mid-1960s. He considered becoming a priest but chose another path. Sheen, however, remained in his heart. “He was just one of the bishops that was… more well-known in the United States than others. For me, he is a great man of the century,” he says with a smile. In the silence of the Dome, his words sound almost like a prayer. He disappears in the crowd, among the people who leave the America’s center carrying the memory of the day and, in the pilgrim bags distributed at the entrance, a five-colour missionary rosary.
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