Diocese of Peoria announces postponement of Fulton Sheen's beatification

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jack63 said:
I can’t believe that they’d postpone a beatification because of concerns about who possessed the body of Bishop Sheen or where he is buried. That just doesn’t make sense.
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You’re right, it doesn’t make sense but that is what the battle has been about for years, where will Bishop Fulton Sheen be buried?

Also, you might have noticed in the video from Raymond Arroyo, where he talks the troubles Fulton Sheen had with Cardinal Spellman, who promised to “get even” with Bishop Sheen. Apparently some in New York wanted to stay very loyal to Cardinal Spellman.
jack63 said:
Do these Bishops know something that hasn’t been made public?
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Here is a timeline and statement from Msgr James Kruse, who was involved in thoroughly investingating Bishop Sheen.

jack63 said:
As for the investigations in the state of New York, I don’t know. It’s pretty confusing. …Are they just being cautious? On the surface, being cautious does not seem to be such a bad thing.
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I think if Bishop Dolan, who continually took Peoria Diocese to court trying to keep Fulton Sheen in New York, hadn’t been involved in the postponement, I would say it was just about being cautious but with his name on the request, it sends a totally different message.
 
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Ok, thanks…I actually read the article a couple of times. I can’t make heads or tails out of any of this.

I’ve been to New York several times. I have relatives there. Now imagine if you were an official at the Vatican (i.e. not from the US), and people were talking about abuse like what’s being described in this long and hard to follow article, and it was your decision. I’d delay the whole thing too.

With that being said I know Bishop Sheen was beloved. I genuinely hope these issues are resolved and he is made a saint some day.
 
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Bishop Fulton Sheen was a completely faithful and orthodox Catholic bishop and defender of the Faith. He had a hugely popular television program in the 1950’s. He often warned against communism; he promoted Catholicism and was known for his faithfulness and holiness.

Maybe he was the kind of bishop that has now fallen out of favor.

The alleged issue which is supposedly holding up his canonization was considered and found to be without merit during the process of his consideration for beatification.
 
17 years is still a relatively short time from start to beatification for a non-martyr saint.

Obviously the Diocese of Peoria has several motivations for wanting a quick beatification:
  1. They want to honor one of their own
  2. They want to honor him while his close relative (his niece Joan who spent a lot of time with him during her life) is alive (she’s in her 90s)
  3. A beatification would bring positive attention, spiritual benefits, and economic benefits, to their diocese and city
  4. At this point they are probably very wary that the Archdiocese of New York will orchestrate some other monkey wrench to be thrown into the proceedings. The Archdiocese of New York has acted very oddly towards Archbishop Sheen for decades now and it is hard to tell what all their motivations are. Cardinal Spellman’s questionable behaviors not only towards Sheen but in many other areas of his life have become pretty well known since his death, so I wouldn’t think they’d be worried about looking bad at this point, but who knows, there may be something else we don’t know about. What I can’t figure out is why New York did next to nothing to promote Sheen’s cause during all the years they had his body and then suddenly got all interested in it when Peoria was about to get a beatification. Unless like I said they didn’t want the bad stuff about Spellman spread around.
  5. As a general reason, people get a lot spiritually out of seeing people made saints who lived in the era close to when we live today. That’s not to say that saints from hundreds of years ago suddenly become irrelevant, but if I’m looking for a role model for my life here in 2019, it’s a lot easier to look to someone who was alive during at least part of my life, such as Pope JPII or Mother Teresa or Stanley Rother or Fulton Sheen, than it is to look to someone who lived 500 years ago in a completely different era and culture.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
What I can’t figure out is why New York did next to nothing to promote Sheen’s cause during all the years they had his body and then suddenly got all interested in it when Peoria was about to get a beatification.
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Part of this is the “changing of the guard” from Cardinal Egan to Cardinal Dolan in 2009—midway through the process. Cardinal Egan had no interest in pursuing the beatification/canonization and let Peoria have at it. And there was an unwritten verbal agreement between bishops that Sheen’s remains would be transferred at the appropriate time. When that time came though, Egan was retired and Dolan was the bishop there.

It’s odd to me, though, to imagine anyone out there that does not like Fulton Sheen. In the places I’ve lived and the Catholic circles I’ve been in, self-described “progressives” and “conservatives” all had a mutual respect and fondness for Sheen. I can’t recall meeting a single Catholic in real life who knew of him and did not like him. That’s why the whole concept of people trying to deliberately sabotage the beatification strikes me as very peculiar.
 
I know some Catholics who think he was spooky/ scary, or too “old school”. I told my friend who thought he was scary that he should have seen the very tall, dark, formal Eastern European rabbi-turned priest at my childhood parish whom us kids immediately dubbed “Father Dracula” the minute we first saw him in church. (The guy turned out to be a very excellent, learned, holy priest once one got past the dramatic exterior.)

Sadly there’s also one purported “Catholic” (actually an Independent Catholic Church priest, not sure if he were ever ordained in the regular Catholic Church) who goes around the net spreading stories about bad stuff Sheen supposedly did. If he’s spreading such stories there are likely others out there who believe them.
 
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Very recently the Pope talked about the process of declaring somebody a Saint. No doubt this is, at least partially, relevant to Bishop Sheen. I really agree with the Pope that is not about time spent investigating a person. Instead it is about eliminating any ambiguity and doubt.

From the article…
Before declaring that a person lived a holy life and is with God in heaven, the pope said, intense investigation is necessary, a work that must be carried out with “seriousness and expertise in studying the procedural sources and documentation with objectivity and rigor in the examination and at every stage of judgment.” Such rigor, he said, is the only way for the Church to “clear the field of any ambiguity and doubt, obtaining full certainty in the proclamation of sainthood.”
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cruxnow.com

Sainthood causes require thorough investigation, pope says

The saints are “the true light of the Church,” so before they are proposed to all Catholics for imitation and veneration, a scrupulous investigation is required, Pope Francis said.
cruxnow.com cruxnow.com
 
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The man is a saint in heaven right now whether the Church declares it or not and regardless of what happens with this so-called “investigation”.
The intercession of a non-saint does not raise a baby from the dead.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
The intercession of a non-saint does not raise a baby from the dead.
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This miracle is really beautiful! I was reading up on it. I dunno…perhaps the magnitude of this type of miracle is all the more reason for a delay. We must make sure there is not any shred of doubt. Trust me when I say I want Bishop Sheen to be declared a Saint!
 
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