NCR Hails Antipope’s Invalid Beatification of Modernist Sheen as Marketing Triumph

The National Catholic Register portal (September 26, 2026) publishes a promotional piece by senior editor Amy Smith advertising three books tied to the recent invalid “beatification” of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen by the antipope Francis (Bergoglio). The article highlights a children’s book by Bonnie Engstrom—mother of the alleged miracle beneficiary—EWTN Publishing’s commemorative volume *America’s Apostle*, and Sheen’s own Marian work *The World’s First Love*. The piece frames Sheen as a “prophetic voice for the modern world,” a media celebrity who won Emmys, appeared on game shows, and is now “a hit with Gen Z,” reducing the supernatural economy of sanctity to a marketing campaign for the neo-church’s publishing wing. This spectacle exposes the conciliar sect’s replacement of the sanctitas required by divine law with the celebrity manufactured by human industry.

The Nullity of the “Beatification” and the Usurpation of Judicial Power

The entire premise of the article rests upon a juridical impossibility: a valid beatification by a manifest heretic who has ipso facto lost the papacy. As St. Robert Bellarmine teaches in De Romano Pontifice, “a Pope who is 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.” Since the line of usurpers beginning with John XXIII has publicly professed the heresies of religious liberty, false ecumenism, and the collegiality that subverts the monarchical constitution of the Church—condemned by Pius XI in Mortalium Animos and Pius IX in the Syllabus—they possess no jurisdiction to bind the faithful in matters of faith or worship. The “beatification” of Sheen is therefore a nullity, nulla, irrita, et invalida (null, void, and invalid), carrying no more weight than a decree from a Masonic lodge. To present this act as a cause for Catholic rejoicing is to participate in the great deception foretold by St. Paul: “that they may believe the lie” (2 Thess 2:11).

Fulton Sheen: The Media Darling of the Pre-Conciliar Liberalism

The article boasts of Sheen’s Emmy Awards, his appearance on a “game show,” and his status as a “world-renowned prophetic voice.” This is the language of the world, saeculum, not the Kingdom of Christ. Sanctity is not measured by Nielsen ratings or secular accolades. Pius XI, in Quas Primas, warns that “when God and Jesus Christ… were removed from laws and states… the foundations of that authority were destroyed.” Sheen’s entire public persona was built upon the accommodation of the Church to the modern world—a precursor to the aggiornamento of Vatican II. His advocacy for a “World Mission Rosary” and his media empire anticipated the conciliar shift from the regnum Christi to the “civilization of love,” substituting the social reign of Christ the King with a vague humanitarianism. The article’s celebration of his “hidden life of prayer” centered on the “Holy Hour” serves only to cloak his public naturalism in a veneer of piety, a classic tactic of the modernista who “under the guise of more serious criticism… aim at such a development of dogmas as appears to be their corruption” (St. Pius X, Pascendi Dominici Gregis).

The “Miracle” as Theatrical Prop for the Neo-Church

The promotional text centers heavily on the “miraculous healing of James Fulton Engstrom” as the divine seal of approval. This instrumentalization of the miraculous for institutional branding is characteristic of the post-conciliar era. The article notes the child’s mother, Bonnie Engstrom, authored the children’s book *Fulton Sheen and the Very Bad Week*, transforming a putative supernatural intervention into a commercial franchise. True miracles confirm dogma and the hierarchical Church; false miracles, or those exploited by heretical sects, confirm only the credulity of the faithful. St. Pius X condemned the Modernist error that “the Church listening cooperates… that the Church teaching should only approve the common opinions of the Church listening” (Lamentabili sane exitu, prop. 6). Here, the “miracle” is manufactured to ratify the neo-church’s narrative, bypassing the rigorous canonical processes of the 1917 Code (Canon 1999 ff.) which required a legitimate Pope and a non-suspect tribunal—neither of which exist in the Vatican today.

EWTN Publishing: The Propaganda Arm of the Counter-Church

The source of the commemorative volume, EWTN Publishing, is the commercial engine of the EWTN network, a structure entirely dependent on the recognition of the usurpers in Rome for its legitimacy and funding. The article functions as an advertorial, blurring the line between editorial content and commercial solicitation. “Follow Sheen’s journey from a small-town boy… to a world-renowned prophetic voice,” the blurb reads, echoing the hagiography of the world. This is the “cult of man” condemned by Pius XI, who instituted the Feast of Christ the King precisely to combat the “secularism of our times, so-called laicism,” where “the Christian religion began to be equated with other false religions.” EWTN’s “Religious Catalogue” sells not the unchangeable faith but a curated spiritual product line designed to pacify conservative Novus Ordo adherents, preventing them from recognizing the abomination of desolation standing in the holy place.

Marian Sentimentality vs. Marian Dogma

The article quotes Sheen’s *The World’s First Love*: “God, who made the sun, also made the moon. The moon does not take away from the brilliance of the sun. All Mary’s light is the reflected light of Christ.” While poetically orthodox on the surface, this sentimentality masks a deficient Mariology that separates the Mother of God from the Co-Redemptrix and Mediatrix of All Graces—doctrines implicit in Tradition and explicit in the Magisterium of Pius IX (Ineffabilis Deus), Leo XIII (Adiutricem), and St. Pius X (Ad Diem Illum). The conciliar sect, culminating in the heretical Lumen Gentium Chapter VIII, demoted Mary to a mere “type of the Church,” stripping her of her unique sovereignty over the angels and demons. Sheen’s “Marian insights” quoted here are stripped of the necessitas medii (necessity of the Mediatrix), rendering them compatible with the false ecumenism that seeks to make Mary a “bridge” to Protestants and schismatics rather than the Terribilis ut castrorum acies ordinata (terrible as an army set in battle array) who crushes all heresies.

The Trivialization of Sanctity in “Fulton Sheen and the Very Bad Week”

The children’s book is described as a “sweet story” where “Young Fulton wonders if he reads too much, rectifies a poor choice, deals with the comments of relatives, forgets to feed his horse and has to stop a favorite pastime for chores!” This is not hagiography; it is the domestication of the supernatural. The saints of the Church—St. Agnes, St. Pancras, St. Tarcisius—are models of heroic virtue and martyrdom, not relatable protagonists navigating “very bad weeks” and forgotten chores. This anthropocentric framing reduces the imitatio Christi to bourgeois self-improvement. It reflects the Modernist error condemned in Lamentabili (prop. 59): “Christ did not proclaim any specific, all-encompassing doctrine suitable for all times and peoples, but rather initiated a certain religious movement, applied or applicable to different times and places.” Sheen is repackaged as a “saint for Gen Z,” a commodity for the spiritual marketplace.

Systemic Apostasy: The Fruit of the Conciliar Revolution

This article is not an isolated error but a symptom of the systemic apostasy of the conciliar sect. It combines:

Invalid Sacraments and Jurisdiction: The “beatification” by an antipope.
Naturalism: The celebration of worldly success (Emmys, fame, Gen Z appeal) as credentials for sanctity.
Commercialism: The monetization of piety through EWTN Publishing.
Sentimentalism: The replacement of dogmatic rigor with “sweet stories” and Marian poetry devoid of Co-Redemptrix theology.
False Ecumenism: The presentation of Sheen—a man who dialogued with communists and Protestants on their terms—as a “prophetic voice for the modern world.”

Pius IX, in the Syllabus (Error 80), condemned the proposition: “The Roman Pontiff can, and ought to, reconcile himself, and come to terms with progress, liberalism and modern civilization.” Sheen’s life and this article’s celebration of him are the embodiment of that condemned proposition. The “peace” offered by the neo-church is the pax Romana of the Antichrist, not the pax Christi in regno Christi (peace of Christ in the Kingdom of Christ) proclaimed by Pius XI in Quas Primas.

Conclusion: Return to the Immutable Tradition

The faithful must reject this entire spectacle—the invalid “beatification,” the commercial books, the media hype—as a diabolical distraction from the una necessaria (one thing necessary): the preservation of the Catholic Faith entire and inviolate. “There is no other name under heaven given to men by which we must be saved” (Acts 4:12), and no other authority than the living Tradition guarded by true bishops retaining valid orders and jurisdiction derived from the last true Pope, Pius XII. The “Blessed Fulton Sheen” of the NCR and EWTN is an idol of the neo-church. The true Church, ecclesia militans, knows her saints by the signum contradictionis (sign of contradiction), not by Emmy Awards. Let the dead bury their dead (Mt 8:22); let the conciliar sect canonize its celebrities. The Catholic waits for the restoration of all things in Christ the King.

Source:
2 Books About Fulton Sheen, Plus 1 the New ‘Blessed’ Wrote, to Read Now (ncregister.com)
Date: 26.09.2026