The Catholic Church doesn't move quickly. For years, I wondered why it was taking so long to beatify Bishop Fulton J. Sheen.
The Diocese of Peoria formally opened the cause for sainthood in 2002. Since then, I have gotten married, had three children, gotten divorced, buried my ex-husband, and seen one of my children reach adulthood.
In 2012, Pope Benedict XVI declared Sheen Venerable, recognizing his heroic virtue. Two years later, a battle broke out over where Sheen's remains should be kept. Sheen was buried in St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York; relatives wanted his remains transferred back to Peoria, where the cause for his sainthood was being pursued.
That legal battle lasted until 2019, when courts permitted the transfer of Sheen's remains to St. Mary's Cathedral in Peoria. In July of that year, Pope Francis formally recognized a miracle attributed to Sheen's intercession: the recovery of James Fulton Engstrom. In 2010, Engstrom was stillborn. His mother, Bonnie, prayed for more than an hour for Sheen to intercede and James regained his pulse.
Rome then scheduled his beatification for December 21, 2019. On December 3, the ceremony was postponed indefinitely after the Diocese of Rochester asked for a delay while it looked into how Sheen handled priests who had been accused of sexual misconduct. This stalled the beatification for another six years.
Today, Sheen is beatified in a ceremony in St. Louis, with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle presiding on behalf of Pope Leo XIV.
“Archbishop Sheen’s heroic commitment to nourishing the soul of our country will inspire others to follow his example and lift our Nation upward and ever higher to God.” @POTUS https://t.co/Rqi3cl1CkM pic.twitter.com/14FeCyP6AW
— Chad Pecknold (@ccpecknold) September 24, 2026
And now, exactly why it took 24 years makes sense: he's exactly what we need as a nation right now. Sheen was, in the words of Bishop Robert Barron, a "fierce voice against communism."
Friends, Fulton Sheen was a fierce voice against communism, recognizing its threat and its essential atheism. He would be deeply troubled by its comeback in our country.
— Bishop Robert Barron (@BishopBarron) September 24, 2026
While in St. Louis, I shared with Fox why we need that voice again today. Read it below: pic.twitter.com/xzSeSu4puV
Here's some of what Sheen has said about communism:
- "Communism has a theory and a practice; it wishes to be not only a state but a church, judging the consciences of men."
- "Communism is both an effect and a judgment on our Western world."
- "Communism is not to be feared just because it is anti-God, but because we are Godless."
- "There is actually such a thing in the world as authoritarianism; it is communism."
- "Communism does not so much place emphasis upon elevating those who are below, as on degrading those who are above."
- "The enemy of the world in the near future is going to be Communism."
- Why can't the modern mind see there is nothing new in communism?"
Gee, doesn't that seem timely?
Sheen rightly knew that communism claimed the whole person "body and soul," and that it is totalitarian; he also knew this: communism grew out of the West's abandonment of Christian obligation and the embrace of materialism. It is a dogmatic ideology that makes fear the basis of obedience and destroys freedom of thought.
We are seeing it play out again here, in America, with the rise of the DSA, which has said full-blown communism is its endgame. They do not, as Sheen said, see that there is nothing new in resurrecting this fetid ideology.
Communism killed 100 million in the 20th century alone. There is no reason to believe it wouldn't do that again in the 21st if given a chance.
And maybe that's why it took 24 years to make Bishop Fulton J. Sheen a saint. We need him now. We need his wisdom now. We need his teaching and his condemnation of communism now.
