Msgr. Roger J. Landry
National Catholic Register
Special Print Edition for the Beatification of Fulton Sheen
September 1, 2026
During his lifetime, Archbishop Fulton Sheen routinely used to fill classes, churches, Cathedrals, and stadiums to overflowing. Four million listened to his weekly radio programs and thirty million — one out of every five Americans in the 1950s — would view his television programs. Many of his 66 books were instant best sellers and his three weekly columns must-reads. Until the election of Pope Leo XIV, he was the most famous American Catholic in history.
As popular, admired and influential as he was during his lifetime, however, there’s a good chance that after his beatification, he is going to become much bigger still.
When Sheen was preparing to step down as Bishop of Rochester, he said he wasn’t retiring but “re-treading.” With his beatification, as the Church raises him as an example and intercessor for Catholics everywhere, he’s getting another set of tires that will likely take him to places that he would never have dreamed to reach on earth.
He — and his beatification — are already huge deals not just for Catholics in the United States but across the globe.
When I traveled to Nigeria in March, I brought with me thousands of Sheen holy cards to distribute in the various parishes, seminaries, convents and schools I would visit. I anticipated I would be introducing Sheen to most. I couldn’t have been more mistaken. Devotion to him was already enormous.
One rector told me that in every seminary in the country, during lunch they read books aloud, as happens in many monasteries and during silent retreats. Some books are read every year; others are new. Among the annual classics is Sheen’s exquisitely beautiful Life of Christ. By the time Nigerian priests are ordained, most have therefore listened to Sheen’s commentaries on Jesus’ life, words and work 8-12 times. And they bring their devotion to him, and his take on various Gospel scenes, to their parishes across the nation.
I have similarly seen the international devotion to him by how many publishers from across the globe have asked me for permission to reprint his books in their languages — Spanish, Portuguese, Polish, French, Italian, Hungarian, English and others — in just the last few months. Sheen generously bequeathed to the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States the copyrights to his written and audio works so that the royalties that come in might continue to support the missions that were his “greatest love.”
The people of the missions reciprocate that predilection. And not just missionary countries. Devotion to Sheen in Brazil — numerically, the largest Catholic country on earth — is so great that the Diocese of Peoria decided to have one of the readings at his beatification Mass done in Brazilian Portuguese. Sheen’s beatification will only augment the international devotion to him.
What do I think Sheen’s celestial “retreading” will involve?
The first is a wave of miracles leading to his canonization.
In the Church’s procedures for causes of canonization, once a decree of beatification is given (after a declaration that the person lived the Christian life heroically and the medical and theological certification of a miracle worked through the person’s posthumous intercession have been given), any other miracles count toward the person’s canonization. For that, only one needs to be verified by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints as instantaneous, long-lasting and clearly ascribable to the person’s intercession.
Since the 2019 decree paving the way for Sheen’s beatification, several people have reported putative miracles to the Diocese of Peoria, which the Diocese will likely begin investigating soon after the beatification, together with others that may be submitted. If one is approved by the Dicastery and presented to the Holy Father, there’s no reason to believe that Pope Leo won’t jump at the chance during his papacy to canonize his fellow Illinoian whose television programs had an impact on the pope’s own parents when Robert Francis Prevost was just an infant.
After canonization, two things are certainly possible.
The first is that Sheen could be named a co-patron of the missions of the Church, alongside Saints Francis Xavier and Thérèse of the Child Jesus. St. Francis Xavier is the greatest missionary in Church history after St. Paul. St. Therese is the model of all those who pray for missionaries and the fruits of their labors. But Sheen is the greatest mission promoter and supporter in Church history.
Through the World Mission Rosary, which he created 75 years ago this year, he has gotten millions to pray for the missions through the intercession of the Queen of Apostles. How fitting it is that before his beatification Mass (literally at 10:08 am Central Time), all those present at the Dome in St. Louis will pray the World Mission Rosary as he asked.
He also informed millions about the missions through founding Mission Magazine (likewise celebrating its 75thanniversary this year), as well as through books, columns, broadcasts and more.
And no one has raised more money for the missions than Sheen. He inspired American Catholics to donate more than $200 million ($2.1 billion in today’s money) and contributed personally more than $10 million from his media earnings to help build Churches and schools, finance the education of priests and religious, assist catechists, and give people on the Great Commission’s front lines the resources and tools they needed to share with others the pearl of great price.
These are all among the reasons why Pope Leo, on June 1, referred to Sheen as the “renowned National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States of America” and as an “example for all of the National and Diocesan Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies throughout the world.”
Just like we need a patron for the Church’s mission work (Xavier) and for prayers for the Church’s mission (Thérèse), so we need a patron of those who help make the work of the missions possible through formation and fundraising. And Sheen is the greatest there has ever been.
The other possibility after canonization is that Sheen could easily become the first American doctor of the Church. He is one of the greatest philosophers and theologians the Church in the United States has ever produced. He taught brilliantly for 24 years at the Catholic University of America and then continued to teach the Church, country and world via radio, television, books, articles, sermons, speeches and more.
His 20th century work is as robust as the work of St. Robert Bellarmine and St. Francis de Sales after the Reformation and as eloquent as the work of St. John Chrysostom and St. Augustine in the early Church.
Since the announcement of his beatification, many have begun to read his works as well. His overall corpus of 66 books is astonishing in its clarity, depth, theological rigor and persuasiveness. He made profound contributions to the theology of the priesthood, marriage, missiology, ecclesiology and the Cross. His insights on Jesus alone will be read for centuries, if not until the Parousia. He is the greatest preacher of Jesus’ Seven Last Words and the greatest apostle of a daily Eucharistic holy hour in Church history. There’s no reason why he couldn’t become the 39th doctor of the Church.
But first the Church will joyfully beatify him.
Then we will see how far his retreaded tires will take him and lead the Church.
Monsignor Roger J. Landry is National Director of The Pontifical Mission Societies.
