Feature

Bonnie Engstrom had prayed for the intercession of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen during her pregnancy, and she implored his help then. As the doctors were preparing to pronounce the newborn dead, he took a breath and his heart rate stabilized.

Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen — the 20th-century theologian, evangelizer and Catholic communications pioneer — “opened the door to the evangelization of the world,” said Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minnesota.

Msgr. Joseph Francis Buh has been granted the title “servant of God” with a Sept. 22 Mass opening the cause for his canonization.

Archbishop Sheen was born on May 8, 1895 in El Paso, Ill. He grew up in Peoria, Ill., where he attended Spalding Institute high school and later attended St. Viator College in Bourbonnais, Ill. He was ordained as a priest in 1919 for the Diocese of Peoria, and eventually served as auxiliary bishop of New York 1951-66 and as bishop of Rochester 1966-69. Upon his retirement in 1969, he was given the honorary title of archbishop.