Overview
- The beatification ceremony was celebrated Thursday, Sept. 24, 2026, at the Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis with Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle serving as the pope’s representative.
- The Vatican’s recognition rests on a 2010 case in which infant James Fulton Engstrom was born without a heartbeat and later recovered after his mother prayed to Sheen; the child’s family attended and presented relics at the Mass.
- Church officials delayed a planned 2019 beatification to investigate questions about Sheen’s tenure as bishop of Rochester, New York, and that inquiry ultimately found no culpability before Rome approved moving forward in February 2026.
- Organizers said roughly 48,000 to 50,000 tickets were distributed for the event, which drew thousands of priests, religious and lay pilgrims and included public praise from Pope Leo XIV and a presidential message.
- Sheen’s new title of Blessed permits limited public veneration and opens the Vatican to investigate another reported miracle, since canonization ordinarily requires a second verified miracle attributed to his intercession.