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ST. LOUIS — Before thousands of pilgrims gathered Sept. 24 at The Dome at America’s Center, Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was formally declared Blessed, nearly half a century after the death of one of the most recognizable Catholic voices of the 20th century.

Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, presided at the Beatification Mass as the representative of Pope Leo XIV, who, the cardinal said, “rejoices at the beatification of his fellow countryman and brother Bishop.”

For many Americans, Blessed Fulton J. Sheen will forever be remembered as the bishop standing before a blackboard on Life Is Worth Living, speaking directly into television cameras with humor, clarity and unmistakable theatrical flair.

He was once dubbed “God’s microphone.” But the microphone was never the mission. It was a tool.

For Blessed Fulton Sheen, radio, television and being in the cover of Time Magazine were opportunities to evangelize — to lead people toward Christ, to explain the faith to those who did not know it, and to remind Catholics that their responsibility extended far beyond the boundaries of their own parish or country.

Cardinal Tagle made precisely that point in his homily, quoting Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic letter describing Archbishop Sheen as “a tireless preacher of the Gospel through the modern means of communication and a diligent shepherd animated by missionary zeal.” He added that, among Sheen’s many ministries, two stood out: “his being an evangelizer or proclaimer of the Gospel and a missionary shepherd.”

That missionary dimension of his life was central to the celebration in St. Louis.

From 1950 to 1966, Archbishop Sheen served as national director of The Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States, overseeing the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, the Society of St. Peter Apostle and the Missionary Union.

Those 16 years coincided with the period of his greatest media fame.

His radio and television audiences numbered in the millions. Yet he repeatedly used that reach to speak about missionaries, persecuted Christians, young churches and people living in poverty around the world.

Cardinal Tagle challenged the idea that Sheen’s blessedness came from celebrity.

“Maybe he is blessed because he was a radio and television celebrity, a renowned writer, followed by millions of admirers, and a global traveler when he served as the National Director of the Society for the Propagation of Faith,” he said. “The question remains: What blessedness does the missionary evangelizer Archbishop Fulton Sheen share with us?”

The answer, he suggested, begins with communion with Christ.

“The missionary evangelizer is blessed by the gift of communion with Jesus,” Cardinal Tagle said. “A missionary evangelizer, therefore, is known by Jesus and is called to know Jesus and His Gospel, is called to labor humbly with Jesus.”

That description fits the spiritual life behind Sheen’s public ministry.

For more than six decades, he remained faithful to a daily Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament. His preaching, broadcasting, fundraising and missionary leadership flowed from prayer.

And he resisted taking credit for the people who came to faith through his work.

Cardinal Tagle recalled an audience during which Pope Pius XII asked Bishop Sheen how many conversions he could claim.

“I really haven’t counted, in order not to have the temptation to believe they were mine,” Bishop Sheen answered. He described himself instead as “simply a porter who is sometimes able to lead people to the open door of the house of God. I have had some success as a porter.”

The image of the porter offers perhaps a better description of Sheen’s media apostolate than “God’s microphone.”

The microphone amplified his voice.

But the porter pointed beyond himself.

When Sheen spoke about the missions on television, preached an appeal or sent a new issue of MISSION Magazine into American homes, he wanted people not merely to admire a compelling speaker, but to encounter Christ and recognize their responsibility toward others.

That concern was especially visible in his love for the poor.

Cardinal Tagle devoted the second part of his homily to what he called another dimension of missionary blessedness: “communion with persons and peoples, especially the poor and the vulnerable, in the name of Jesus Christ.”

He recalled one of Sheen’s interventions at the Second Vatican Council, in which the bishop urged the Church to confront the poverty experienced across much of Africa, Asia and Latin America.

“As only a wounded Christ could convert a doubting Thomas, so only a Church wounded by poverty can convert a doubting world,” Sheen told the Council in 1964.

He did not leave that challenge at the level of rhetoric.

Cardinal Tagle noted that Sheen “took up his own challenge by giving to the poor whatever remunerations he received from his commitments and by animating the missionary commitment of the Church in the United States to the poor Churches of the world.”

During his years leading the missions in the United States, Sheen helped raise extraordinary sums for missionary work- and donated $10 million of his own income. He founded MISSION Magazine, created the World Mission Rosary, traveled to mission territories and gave generously from his own media earnings.

But the missionary vision behind those efforts was not primarily financial.

It was personal.

Cardinal Tagle illustrated that with one of the most striking stories of the homily.

Sheen once visited a community of people suffering from leprosy, bringing silver crosses as gifts. When the first man approached him, Sheen recoiled from the damaged flesh of his hand and dropped the cross rather than placing it into his palm.

Then he realized the contradiction.

“The cross spoke of Jesus who became vulnerable to give new life to sinners, the sick and the dead,” Cardinal Tagle recounted. “Jesus touched people afflicted with leprosy during his ministry. Why can’t he, Archbishop Fulton Sheen, do the same?”

Sheen then reached out and touched the man.

For Cardinal Tagle, that moment captured the deeper conversion required of every missionary.

“Blessed is the evangelizer converted by beholding and touching the wounds of the Risen Christ in wounded brothers and sisters,” he said. “Blessed is the missionary who digs deep into the heart of the poor to meet Jesus there. Blessed Fulton J. Sheen!”

That may also be the clearest answer to why Archbishop Sheen’s missionary legacy still matters.

His media work was innovative, but the technology was never the point.

He went where people were.

In one generation, that meant radio. In the next, that meant TV and print, with MISSION Magazine. Today it may mean social media, video, podcasts or whatever communications tools come next.

The method changes. The mission does not.

The Beatification Mass also carried particular significance for The Pontifical Mission Societies USA.

Blessed Fulton Sheen’s beatification comes during the centenary year of World Mission Sunday, the annual worldwide day of prayer and giving for the missions that he spent 16 years promoting.

And the message Cardinal Tagle offered in St. Louis echoed the heart of Sheen’s missionary vision: evangelization begins in communion with Jesus and leads outward toward real people, particularly those who are poor, vulnerable or forgotten.

The Church has not raised Fulton Sheen to the altars because he mastered television, filled auditoriums or became a household name.

It recognizes in him a priest who placed extraordinary gifts at the service of Christ and the mission of the Church.

Behind the microphone was a missionary.

Behind the television personality was a priest of the Eucharist.

And behind the millions who watched and listened was a man who, in his own words, wanted simply to be a porter — someone who could lead people to the open door of the house of God.

The microphone was simply one way to point them there.

Read more about Blessed Fulton J. Sheen in our MISSION Magazine Fulton Sheen Special Edition.