I was struck by a strange feeling upon finishing the manuscript for my biography of Pope Leo XIV. It occurred to me that my subject, Cardinal Robert Francis Prevost, the first American supreme pontiff, would now become the most famous American Catholic in the history of the Church.  

That itself was a revelation, but I was further taken aback when I realized who Cardinal Prevost would unwittingly supplant in that position. He would be taking that title from the late, great Archbishop Fulton Sheen (1895-1979). Not that this is a competition, nor that the soon-to-be beatified Archbishop Sheen would have minded. Venerable Fulton Sheen would have been thrilled at the notion of an American pope. Still, the realization hit me as remarkable and a bit sad, even as it wouldn’t have saddened Sheen. In fact, it may well benefit him. 

One of Ven. Sheen’s biographers, Thomas Reeves, dubbed him “America’s Bishop.” As many readers know, Archbishop Sheen was widely beloved. He was a household name among Catholics and non-Catholics alike. Personally, I’ve written on him at length in articles and books and have been intimately close to his home parish, his museum, and his distinctly American town of Peoria, Illinois.  

It is interesting that both Sheen and Prevost — America’s Bishop and the American Pope — come from Illinois. In my 2017 book A Pope and a President, which was about John Paul II and Ronald Reagan but had much material on Fulton Sheen, I noted the irony that the two greatest communicators of the 20th century (Reagan was dubbed “the Great Communicator”) hailed from small farm towns mere miles apart in northwestern Illinois, the American Midwest, the Heartland. Add Leo to that distinction, growing up in little Dolton, Illinois. 

To be sure, Leo does not have Archbishop Sheen’s communications skills (no one does), but he will have a platform far larger than Archbishop Sheen ever had. Archbishop Sheen was incredibly influential on radio and television, but his microphone pales in comparison to the megaphone that Leo XIV now possesses. And that microphone reached Robert Francis Prevost, as the new pontiff himself acknowledged shortly after being elected pope. 

Mere weeks after his installation, Pope Leo told a newly married couple in Rome that Fulton Sheen “had an influence” on him, and that he grew up watching Sheen on television. That young couple, Kristen and Austin Savage, first met at a Sheen-themed event at the Cathedral of St. Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, the very parish where Archbishop Sheen had been ordained a priest and that today holds his earthly remains. Kristen and Austin asked the new Holy Father and a fellow Illinois native to consider picking up Archbishop Sheen’s cause for canonization that had suddenly halted several years ago. 

“Venerable Fulton Sheen played a major role in our relationship,” said Kristen in an article in the Register. “And during our marriage preparation, we always asked for his intercession. So he’s always been someone who we wanted to see canonized.” And thus, “when I saw the Holy Father, I said, ‘We’d really like to see his canonization’ — and what better person to plead our cause to than the Holy Father himself?” 

What was Pope Leo’s response?  

“The Holy Father did specifically say he would remember what we said,” said Kristen. “So that definitely did give us hope for Fulton Sheen’s canonization. Maybe we will see it during Pope Leo’s pontificate.”  

Maybe? Indeed. Kristen said that last July. Her statement is proving prophetic, or at least on track. 

We quickly saw in just the opening months of Leo’s papacy a marked reversal in the pause of Sheen’s track to sainthood. The momentum that suddenly slowed during the Francis papacy has picked back up into a positive trajectory.  

For his part, Pope Francis on July 5, 2019, approved the miracle attributed to the intercession of Sheen. Soon thereafter, Sheen was set to be beatified on Dec. 21, 2019, but the beatification was delayed. It was reported that the bishop of Rochester had requested the delay due to concerns that Sheen (who had been bishop in Rochester in the late 1960s) might be named in the final report of an ongoing investigation into clergy sex abuse in New York. 

That delay was quite unexpected. To many Sheen fans, it seemed mysterious, controversial. It had many Sheen admirers saddened, disappointed and frustrated. Some even blamed Pope Francis or perceived plotters and “enemies” organized against their guy. Whatever the culprit, the delay persisted, and Archbishop Sheen’s advocates were dispirited. But behold, that darkness lifted in February of this year, when the Holy See officially informed Bishop Louis Tylka of the Diocese of Peoria that the cause for the Venerable Fulton Sheen can proceed to beatification. 

Just one month later, the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints announced that Archbishop Sheen would be beatified at a Mass presided over by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, Pro-Prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, on Sept. 24, 2026, in St. Louis, Missouri. Cardinal Tagle will formally represent Pope Leo XIV. The Diocese of Peoria is ecstatic and planning a huge celebration. 

By January 2026, eight months into Leo’s papacy, Fulton Sheen’s beatification was quickly back on track. There was a sharp change in pace for Archbishop Sheen’s process toward sainthood within just the first year of the Leo papacy. 

And that is plainly great news. 

Last fall, I closed my manuscript on Pope Leo with an unusual section called, “An American Postscript,” where I shared some of these thoughts on Pope Leo and Archbishop Sheen, including Leo taking the mantle of most famous American Catholic ever. I also quoted Leo’s words to Kristen and Austin. I speculated that Pope Leo could possess the ability to change the momentum on Sheen’s delayed beatification. And it looks like that may have happened. 

It’s a blessed irony: The cause of our once best-known Catholic may well have been picked up and advanced by our new best-known Catholic. And regardless of who is most responsible, the Holy Father or the Holy Spirit, Fulton Sheen fans can rejoice. 

 

Paul Kengor is a professor of political science at Grove City College, editor of The American Spectator, and author of more than two dozen books. His latest is American Pontiff: Pope Leo XIV and His Plan to Heal the Church (Humanix Books, 2026).