Dec. 9, 1979
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen dies at age 84 in the chapel of his apartment on the East Side of Manhattan in New York City.
Dec. 13, 1979
Sheen’s funeral takes place at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan, where his body is laid in the crypt. Sheen had bought a plot at Calvary Cemetery in Queens in 1976 and had specified in his will several days before he died that he wished to be buried there. But soon after Sheen died, Cardinal Terence Cooke, the archbishop of New York, asked Sheen’s niece, Joan Sheen Cunningham, if Sheen could be buried at the cathedral instead, and she agreed.
1998
A foundation is formed to promote Sheen’s possible cause for canonization as a saint and receives permission from Cardinal John O’Connor, the archbishop of New York, to gather data about Sheen.
June 2001
Historian Thomas C. Reeves publishes a biography, America’s Bishop: The Life and Times of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. While admiring Sheen, Reeves details his rocky relationship with New York Cardinal Francis Spellman and other archdiocesan clerics. He also accuses Sheen of falsely claiming a second doctorate from Rome, though defenders say the
