Conciliar Sect’s Canonization Factory Churns Out Another Media Saint: The Sheen Spectacle
The EWTN News portal reports that the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation is currently investigating six purported miracles attributed to the television prelate’s intercession, including an alleged “instantaneous” resolution of Stage 4 cancer and the healing of a newborn with hypoxic ischemic encephalopathy. This announcement was made at a press conference featuring Bonnie Engstrom, whose son James Fulton Engstrom—previously declared miraculously healed after 61 minutes without a heartbeat—served as the basis for Sheen’s beatification by the antipope Francis in July 2019. The beatification Mass, scheduled for the same day, is to be celebrated by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as representative of the current usurper, “Pope” Leo XIV (Robert Prevost). The entire spectacle is presented as a validation of the conciliar sect’s sacramental and juridical machinery, with Engstrom herself proclaiming reassurance that “when the Catholic Church says something is a miracle, it is a miracle.”
The Nullity of the Beatification: An Act of a Manifest Heretic
The foundational premise of this entire report—the beatification of Fulton Sheen by Jorge Bergoglio in 2019—is canonically and theologically null and void ab initio. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, a manifest heretic “by that very fact ceases to be Pope and head, just as he ceases to be a Christian and member of the body of the Church.” Bergoglio’s persistent public profession of Modernist errors—religious liberty, false ecumenism, the hermeneutic of evolution, the idolatrous pachamama rites, the denial of the necessity of the Church for salvation—constitutes manifest heresy. By the principle ipso facto (by the fact itself), he lost all jurisdiction before any declaratory sentence. Wernz and Vidal confirm in Ius Canonicum that “by notorious and publicly manifested heresy, the Roman Pontiff… is deprived ipso facto of his personal jurisdiction even before any declaratory sentence by the Church.”
Therefore, the beatification decree bears no more authority than the private opinion of a layman. The “miracle” approved by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints under a usurper is a simulacrum of a judicial act, devoid of the potestas iurisdictionis required for such acts. The faithful are not bound to accept it; indeed, they are forbidden to give it the assent due to the authentic Magisterium.
Fulton Sheen: A Man of the Transition, Not a Saint of Tradition
Archbishop Sheen (1895–1979) was a brilliant orator and a master of the new medium of television, but his theology bears the marks of the nouvelle théologie that paved the way for Vatican II. He was a collaborator with the modernist currents of his time, a promoter of the “lay apostolate” concepts that would blossom into the conciliar Apostolicam Actuositatem, and a figure who, while defending certain truths, accommodated the spirit of the age. His cause is being pushed not because of heroic virtue in the Thomistic sense, but because he is a marketable brand for the neo-church: a telegenic American “bishop” who bridges the pre- and post-conciliar eras, useful for the aggiornamento narrative.
The Syllabus of Errors
of Pius IX condemns the proposition that “the Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization” (Error 80). Sheen’s entire public persona was an exercise in precisely this forbidden reconciliation. His “Life is Worth Living” program presented a Catholicism sanitized for Protestant America, emphasizing psychology and natural virtue over the supernatural life of grace, the necessity of the Church, and the Social Kingship of Christ the King so magnificently taught by Pius XI in Quas Primas (1925): “When God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.”
The “Miracle” Machinery: Naturalism Masquerading as the Supernatural
The language of the article reveals the naturalistic reductionism of the conciliar miracle process. Monsignor Gray speaks of “gathering documentation,” “potential healing,” “candidates,” and “investigation” in tones indistinguishable from a medical peer review or an insurance claim. The mother, Bonnie Engstrom, reveals the Protestantized, subjectivist piety fostered by the sect: she chose Sheen because he was a “local boy” with a “down-to-earth Midwestern air,” a “warm character” reminding her of her grandfather. This is sentimentalism, not the theological virtue of faith. The miracle is reduced to a transaction: prayer to a “heavenly friend” → medical anomaly → Vatican rubber stamp → canonization product.
The authentic Catholic understanding of miracles, as defended by the Holy Office under St. Pius X in Lamentabili Sane Exitu (1907), condemns the proposition that “the Resurrection of the Savior is not properly a historical fact, but belongs to the purely supernatural order… it is not proven, cannot be proven” (Prop. 36). The conciliar sect, by treating miracles as empirically verifiable “cases” for a bureaucratic process, implicitly denies their properly supernatural character as signa credibilitatis (signs of credibility) wrought by God extra ordinem naturae to confirm divine Revelation and the Church’s mission. They become mere “wonders” to be cataloged.
The Engstrom “Miracle”: Medical Anomaly or Divine Intervention?
The case of James Fulton Engstrom—61 minutes without a heartbeat—is presented as medically inexplicable. Yet the article admits the Vatican investigation was “thorough,” implying the judgment rests on the negative conclusion of medical consultants (“no natural explanation found”). This is the God-of-the-gaps methodology condemned by Pius XII in Humani Generis (1950) when applied to theology. True miracles are not established by the inability of current medicine to explain a recovery; they are recognized by their instantaneity, completeness, and permanence coupled with a clear theological context (prayer for a specific grace, confirmation of doctrine). The Engstrom case lacks the doctrinal dimension: the family prayed to a “favorite” prelate, not for the confirmation of a dogma or the exaltation of the Church’s rights.
Furthermore, the child is now 16 years old. The article uses him as a prop: “The healthy 16-year-old will present several of Sheen’s relics during the beatification Mass.” This is liturgical theater, not the veneration of a saint. Relics of a non-canonized (and invalidly beatified) person have no public cultus permitted. The 1917 Code (Canon 1281) forbids public veneration of servants of God without papal approval—but here the “pope” is an antipope, and the “approval” is a nullity.
EWTN: The Propaganda Arm of the Abomination of Desolation
The source of this article, EWTN (Eternal Word Television Network), founded by the late Mother Angelica, has long functioned as the de facto state media of the conciliar sect. It promotes the “pope,” the “bishops,” the “canonizations,” the “synods,” and the entire Novus Ordo apparatus. The reporter, Jonah McKeown, is a staff writer for the National Catholic Register (owned by EWTN), a publication that consistently whitewashes the apostasy of the Vatican usurpers. The article’s closing—”I agree to receive communications from EWTN… Privacy Policy”—underscores the commercial, corporate nature of this enterprise. It is a business selling a religious product: the illusion of continuity.
Cardinal Tagle and the “Pope Leo XIV” Charade
The Mass is to be celebrated by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle as “Pope Leo XIV’s representative.” Robert Prevost, elected in the 2025 conclave of the sect, takes the name Leo XIV—a deliberate mockery of Leo XIII (the great defender of the Church’s rights against the state, author of Rerum Novarum and Immortale Dei) and St. Pius X (the hammer of Modernism). Prevost is a manifest modernist, a promoter of synodality, religious dialogue, and the Fiducia Supplicans blessings of same-sex unions. His “representative” Tagle is a known advocate of the “listening Church” and the dilution of doctrinal clarity. Their participation confirms the institutional continuity of the apostasy.
The Canonization Factory: Industrial Production of “Saints”
Since the 1983 Code of the pseudo-church abolished the Promoter of the Faith (the “Devil’s Advocate”) and reduced the miracle requirement to one for beatification and one for canonization (often waived), the sect has churned out “saints” at an industrial pace: John Paul II, John XXIII, Paul VI, Oscar Romero, Mother Teresa, Carlo Acutis, and now the pipeline includes Sheen. This is not the work of the Holy Ghost but of a paramasonic structure manufacturing heroes for a new religion: the cult of man. As the Syllabus condemns (Error 16): “Man may, in the observance of any religion whatever, find the way of eternal salvation.” The neo-church’s saints are icons of this indifferentism.
The Theological Verdict: Non Est Ecclesia
The article is a document of the Great Apostasy foretold in 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4. It presents a false church, a false pope, a false beatification, a false miracle process, and a false media apparatus—all collaborating to simulate the Bride of Christ while denying her King. The silence on the Social Kingship of Christ, the rights of the Church over the state, the necessity of the Catholic Faith for salvation, the reality of Hell, and the duty to combat error—this silence is the gravest accusation. As Pius XI taught in Quas Primas: “The state must leave the same freedom to the members of Orders… who are indeed the most valiant helpers of the Pastors of the Church and contribute most to the expansion and establishment of Christ’s Kingdom.” The Sheen Foundation seeks not Christ’s Kingdom, but a niche in the conciliar hall of fame.
No Catholic may attend this beatification Mass, venerate Sheen as “Blessed,” or trust the “miracles” approved by the usurpers. The true Church of Christ subsists in those who hold the integral Faith of Trent and Vatican I, reject the Modernist occupation of Rome, and await the restoration of a true Pope who will consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart (not the Masonic “Fatima” caricature) and restore all things in Christ. Instaurare omnia in Christo—not in Sheen, not in Bergoglio, not in Prevost.
Sede vacante, sedes non deficit. Christus vincit, Christus regnat, Christus imperat.
Source:
Sheen Foundation gathering information on ‘instantaneous’ cancer case, 5 other purported miracles (ewtnnews.com)
Date: 24.09.2026