Fulton John Sheen, was born May 8, 1895 in Illinois and was ordained a priest of the diocese of Peoria in Peoria, IL on September 20, 1919. In 1930, after just eleven years of priesthood, Sheen began hosting a weekly Sunday night radio broadcast called The Catholic Hour. This broadcast captured many devoted listeners, reportedly drawing an audience of four million people every week for two decades. In 1951, Sheen was appointed Auxiliary Bishop of the Archdioceses of New York, the same year he started Life is Worth Living. Life is Worth Living ran until 1957. Bishop Sheen hosted another television series, The Fulton Sheen Program, running from 1961 to 1968 that closely modeled the Life is Worth Living series.
In 1979 Fulton J. Sheen received his greatest accolade when Pope John Paul II embraced him and said, "You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus. You are a loyal son of the Church." With that last acknowledgement, Fulton Sheen passed into eternal life just two months later on December 9, 1979.
Bishop Fulton Sheen was scheduled for beatification (the process of becoming a saint in the Catholic Church) on December 21, 2019, at the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria. On December 3, 2019, the Diocese of Peoria announced that the beatification of Sheen would be delayed.
