Blessed Fulton Sheen’s baptismal parish to become part of first parish named in his honor
St. Mary Catholic Church in El Paso, Illinois, where Sheen was baptized and spent his early childhood, will unite with St. John Parish in Benson to form Blessed Fulton Sheen Parish.
The parish where Blessed Fulton Sheen was baptized and spent the first five years of his life will become part of a new parish named in his honor, Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka announced Sept. 26.
St. Mary Catholic Church in El Paso, Illinois, will unite with St. John Parish in Benson to form Blessed Fulton Sheen Parish. The new parish will be established Dec. 9, Blessed Fulton Sheen’s feast day.
Bishop John O. Barres of Rockville Centre, New York — whom Sheen baptized in 1960 in Larchmont, New York — celebrated Mass at St. Mary’s, where the announcement was made. Sheen was baptized May 12, 1895, in the former church building, on the site of what is now the parish hall, according to the church’s website.
“Here is where the Holy Trinity entered his soul, where the adventure of holiness — the lifelong joy of following the Lord Jesus — was placed before him and where the call to mission — to be an ambassador of Christ — was conferred,” Bishop Barres said, OSV News reported.
Bishop Tylka also remarked on the importance of Baptism in the late bishop’s life in a statement published on The Archbishop Fulton John Sheen Foundation’s website.
“There, his life in Christ began,” Bishop Tylka said in the statement. “From those waters of Baptism flowed a remarkable life of faith, priesthood, preaching, teaching, missionary discipleship and evangelization that eventually touched millions of people around the world.”
Bishop Tylka added that having Bishop Barres present “provides a beautiful reminder that the sacramental life of the Church connects generations of disciples in ways we cannot always foresee.”
The church buildings will keep their names, Bishop Tylka noted.
“Each will continue to carry the history, traditions and memories of the generations of Catholics who have worshiped there,” he said, according to the foundation.
The bishop concluded: “My prayer is that generations from now, when people hear the name and visit Blessed Fulton Sheen Parish, they will encounter a vibrant community of disciples who live as he did, convinced that Jesus Christ is worth knowing, worth loving and worth sharing with the world.”
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