President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump marked the historic beatification of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen with an official White House message honoring the celebrated Catholic evangelist and his extraordinary use of television and radio to proclaim the Gospel.
In the presidential message issued Sept. 24, Trump and the First Lady joined Catholics celebrating Sheen’s life and legacy, describing him as “the Catholic priest who pioneered the use of media to speak the truth, preach the Gospel, and bring many souls closer to Christ.”
Sheen was beatified Sept. 24 at The Dome at America’s Center in St. Louis, Missouri. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle presided as the representative of Pope Leo XIV, according to Vatican News. The beatification formally gives Sheen the title “Blessed” and represents a major step in the Catholic Church’s process toward canonization.
The White House highlighted the significance of the occasion, noting that Sheen became “the first-ever American-born bishop to be beatified by the Catholic Church.”
Born in Illinois in 1895, Sheen became one of the most recognizable Catholic voices in American media. After years of teaching, lecturing and radio broadcasting, he was consecrated Auxiliary Bishop of New York in 1951 and became nationally famous through his television program Life Is Worth Living.
The White House recalled how Sheen appeared before television audiences with little more than his clerical attire, a chalkboard and his remarkable ability to communicate complex theological ideas. His program eventually reached an estimated 30 million viewers each week, according to Saint Louis University.
According to LifeSiteNews, Trump and the First Lady also drew attention to Sheen’s warnings about the spiritual and cultural challenges facing the United States.
The presidential message recalled a later television address in which Sheen warned against a destructive mentality focused on tearing down institutions and traditions. After listing repeated calls of “Down” directed toward schools, churches, teachers, government and police, Sheen challenged Americans to look instead toward something higher.
“Can you build anything down?” Sheen asked, according to the White House message. “You cannot.”
He then urged the country to turn upward, ultimately calling Americans “Up—up to God.”
The White House portrayed that message as part of Sheen’s broader effort to strengthen American society through Christianity rather than using his immense popularity for personal advancement.
Sheen’s ministry extended well beyond television. He served as Bishop of Rochester, New York, and was later given the personal title of archbishop. Shortly before his death in 1979, Pope St. John Paul II embraced Sheen at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York and praised his decades of evangelization.
“You have written and spoken well of the Lord Jesus,” the pope told him, according to the White House account. “You are a loyal son of the Church.”
Sheen died two months later.
His influence, however, has continued through recordings of his broadcasts, his extensive writings and renewed interest among Catholics discovering his preaching generations after his television career ended.
That legacy was at the heart of his beatification in St. Louis. The Diocese of Peoria, where Sheen was born, ordained and first served as a priest, described the occasion as “a moment of immense grace for the Church.”
The White House concluded its message by turning Sheen’s beatification into a prayer for the country.
As Catholics gathered to honor the newly beatified archbishop, Trump and the First Lady said they prayed that Sheen’s “heroic commitment to nourishing the soul of our country” would encourage others to follow his example and “lift our Nation upward and ever higher to God.”
For Catholics who continue to encounter Sheen through his books, sermons and surviving television broadcasts, his beatification brings new recognition to a ministry that demonstrated decades ago how modern media could become a powerful instrument for evangelization.
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