Originally published at The Crux
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PEORIA, Ill. — Bonnie Engstrom believes a long-deceased TV priest helped save her son’s life after he was born in 2010 without a pulse.
The Catholic Church agreed, declaring the boy’s resuscitation a miracle after Engstrom and others sought the heavenly prayers of the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, who died in 1979. That determination made Sheen — a towering presence in 20th-century Catholicism, with pioneering broadcasts on radio and TV — eligible for beatification.
Now after years of delays to his formal beatification, Engstrom and many others from around Sheen’s hometown of Peoria are eagerly preparing for a service on Sept. 24 that will designate the late prelate as “Blessed Fulton Sheen” — one step away from sainthood.
This combination of photos provided by Bonnie L. Engstrom shows her son, James Fulton Engstrom, in the NICU at OSF St. Francis Hospital in Peoria, Ill., in October 2010, left, and in
