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Fulton John Sheen was born Peter John Sheen on 8 May 1895 in El Paso, Illinois, United States, the eldest of four sons of Newton Morris Sheen and Delia Fulton Sheen, Irish-American Catholics who later settled in Peoria. He subsequently used Fulton, his mother's maiden name, as his given name. After studies at Spalding Institute in Peoria, St. Viator College in Illinois, and Saint Paul Seminary in Minnesota, he was ordained a priest of the Diocese of Peoria in 1919. Sent to Europe for further study, he earned a doctorate in philosophy from the Catholic University of Leuven in Belgium, writing on Henri Bergson, and also studied in Rome and Paris. He then taught philosophy and theology at the Catholic University of America in Washington, D.C., becoming known as a lecturer who combined Thomistic thought with commentary on contemporary culture.

From 1930 he was the principal speaker on the NBC radio program The Catholic Hour, which continued for more than two decades and gave him a national audience. In 1950 he was appointed national director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, a role he held until 1966 and in which he raised large sums for missionary work. Consecrated a bishop in 1951 as titular bishop of Caesariana and auxiliary of New York, he began in 1952 the television series Life Is Worth Living, which ran in prime time, attracted millions of viewers, and won an Emmy Award. Using a chalkboard and a conversational style, he explained Catholic doctrine, criticized communism and secularism, and addressed moral questions of the mid-twentieth century, becoming one of the most recognizable religious figures in the United States. He donated his television earnings to the missions.

Sheen published dozens of books and countless articles on dogma, the spiritual life, and the encounter between Christianity and modern ideologies. He was noted for instructing converts, including several well-known public figures of his era, and for a decades-long personal practice of a daily holy hour before the Blessed Sacrament. In 1966 Pope Paul VI appointed him Bishop of Rochester, New York. His tenure there, which lasted until 1969, involved implementing the Second Vatican Council and was not without pastoral controversy. Upon resignation he was named titular Archbishop of Newport. In later years he reduced public appearances but continued to write and to be regarded as a preacher of unusual rhetorical power.

Sheen died of heart disease on 9 December 1979 in New York City. He was first buried in the crypt of St. Patrick's Cathedral. The Diocese of Peoria opened his cause for canonization; Pope Benedict XVI declared him Venerable in 2012. After acceptance of a miracle attributed to his intercession involving the recovery of a stillborn infant, he was beatified on 21 December 2019 in Peoria by Cardinal Giovanni Angelo Becciu acting for Pope Francis. His remains were transferred that year to the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria. Blessed Fulton Sheen is commemorated on 9 December.

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