Miracle baby’s mom reflects on Archbishop Sheen ahead of beatification Mass

Sixty-one minutes.

An hour that felt like a lifetime in 2010 to the Engstroms as emergency room doctors struggled to revive their just-born son who, for those entire 61 minutes, had no pulse.

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.

On Sept. 16, 2026, that baby — James Fulton Engstrom — turned 16. He is a healthy, typical teen living in suburban Peoria, the same Illinois city where his patron was ordained to the priesthood and is now interred. In 2014, a board of medical experts approved James’ incredible recovery as a miracle, and in 2019, it was approved by the late Pope Francis as a miracle attributed to Archbishop Sheen.

The morning of the Sept. 24 beatification Mass for Archbishop Sheen in St. Louis, Bonnie Engstrom joined Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Illinois, and Msgr. Jason Gray, a priest of the Diocese of Peoria and the executive director of the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation, to talk with media about soon-to-be Blessed Fulton J. Sheen. In 2011, Msgr. Gray led the investigation into the miracle of James Engstrom’s birth.

— Beatification ‘a foretaste of heaven’ —

Looking ahead to the beatification later that day at The Dome at America’s Center, Bonnie Engstrom said, “When I’m in my seat and I look out, I just feel like it’s going to be a foretaste of heaven, where we are all going to be worshipping God together and celebrating the Church as a whole. … I’m so looking forward to it.”

Engstrom has said she believes those 61 minutes could be connected to the Holy Hour Archbishop Sheen prayed daily before the Eucharist. Even before James’ birth, Bonnie and her husband, Travis Engstrom, had put their son under Archbishop Sheen’s patronage and had planned to give him the name “Fulton.”

“It was just a very natural thing in that moment — the hardest hour of my life so far — for us to naturally fall back on calling for the help of the man that I had already been asking for his help for my child,” she told media Sept. 24.

Bonnie Engstrom said she long felt an affection for Archbishop Sheen, a prominent Catholic figure both on radio and TV in the mid-20th century. He became known as “America’s bishop” for his remarkable gifts for preaching the Gospel and teaching about the Catholic Church. Engstrom said she appreciated Archbishop Sheen’s humor, intelligence and “that he so passionately loved Jesus Christ and was not afraid to talk about that, including on public television in front of millions of people.”

“He’s like a local boy, you know, with hometown pride,” she said. “Watching Fulton Sheen, watching his videos and reading him — for me, it’s very similar to listening to my great-grandpa talk and share stories. I don’t know if it’s a Midwestern thing, but he just felt like a loved one, and my husband and I were drawn to him from the very beginning.”

— A life worth living —

Born in 1895, Archbishop Sheen was ordained in 1919 as a priest of the Diocese of Peoria. He taught philosophy at The Catholic University of America in Washington and rose to fame first through his radio show “The Catholic Hour” and then TV show “Life is Worth Living.”

He meanwhile served as national director for the Society of the Propagation of the Faith, an arm of the Holy See now part of the Pontifical Mission Societies, supporting the Church’s evangelization and humanitarian relief efforts around the world.

He was an auxiliary bishop of the Archdiocese of New York before serving as bishop of Rochester, New York, from 1966 to 1969. Upon his retirement, Pope Paul VI gave him the title “archbishop.” He continued to preach and give retreats, and died at age 84 in 1979.

The Diocese of Peoria opened Archbishop Sheen’s cause for canonization in 2002, and in 2012, Pope Benedict XVI recognized the archbishop’s heroic virtue, declaring him “venerable.”

The cause was temporarily sidelined, however, at a few points. In 2014, the same year James Engstrom’s miracle was approved, the Diocese of Peoria and the Archdiocese of New York were locked in a dispute over the archbishop’s remains, which had been interred in New York. The dispute was resolved in court and in 2019 the archbishop’s remains were transferred to Peoria, where they are entombed in the diocese’s Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception.

— Patron saints —

Bonnie Engstrom said the beatification process has been “an emotional rollercoaster.”

“From Day 1, there were times … the only prayer I could pray was, ‘Jesus, I trust in you,’ and whatever that outcome was going to be,” she said, noting her joy to be able to have arrived at the beatification and say, “Glory to God.”

Engstrom is the mother of eight, each of whom she and her husband have placed under the patronage of a particular saint. As a family, they have built a culture around celebrating those saints’ feast days, she said.

“I want all of my kids to feel like they have a squad that surrounds them, that is following them through life, praying for them, interceding, cheering them on,” she said. “James definitely has a devotion to Bishop Sheen,” and although he is a “very private boy,” he sometimes shares insights from that relationship with his family, Bonnie added.

The Engstroms have purposely tried to shield James from the spotlight, Bonnie Engstrom said.

“He’s a delightful young man, but he’s still just a teenage boy and needs to be given the space and the grace,” she said. “We didn’t ask for any of this, and we are very honored to be part of it.”

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