Fulton Sheen hologram experience announced ahead of beatification
The announcement came during a webcast highlighting Ven. Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen’s continuing influence on Catholic media, prayer, and the faithful nearly five decades after his death. Guest speakers at the digital event included actor Jonathan Roumie, religious sisters, clergy, and Catholic media personalities.
A Fulton Sheen hologram experience will open in September as Catholics prepare for the celebrated American archbishop’s Sept. 24 beatification.
Royce Hood, chief operating officer for the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, announced the project during the Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen Foundation’s Aug. 27 “Before He Is Called Blessed” webcast, which brought together Catholic speakers to reflect on Ven. Sheen’s life and ministry.
The hologram experience will open in September as an early part of a larger Sheen Experience under development at the Spalding Institute in Peoria, where Ven. Sheen attended high school. Hood said the full museum, expected to open in about two to three years, will transform the building into a multi-level studio featuring a replica of the set from his television program “Life Is Worth Living.”
“Long term we are creating the Sheen Experience, which will be a place where people can encounter the Lord through Fulton Sheen,” Hood said.
Hood said the project is intended to extend Ven. Sheen’s work beyond the museum itself.
“It will be a living, breathing studio where content will be created, where people will be able to study and really experience Sheen in a manner in which it’s just going to be revolutionary, the way that we’re doing it,” he said.
Guest speakers highlight Sheen’s legacy
Actor Jonathan Roumie, who portrays Jesus in “The Chosen,” made a surprise appearance during the webcast and reflected on Ven. Sheen’s growing influence in his own life.
Roumie said Ven. Sheen had repeatedly come to his attention in recent years, prompting him to learn more about the archbishop’s television ministry and recognize a connection to his own vocation as an actor.
“I started looking into him and I recognized and I understood what his ministry was and how I could sort of relate to it, working in television and working in my heart as a form of ministry, doing what I do as an actor, using the gifts that God has entrusted to me to point the way to his son Jesus,” Roumie said.
That connection also shaped Roumie’s advice for young Catholics seeking to share their faith through their own talents.
“I think whatever you do, you have to do it with an aspiration towards excellence,” Roumie said during the webcast. “If you’ve got a talent for something, hone that talent, work on that skill.”
Whether those gifts are used in media, television, or elsewhere, Roumie encouraged Catholics to develop them and put them to their fullest use.
“Do it to the ultimate best of your ability,” he said. “Because God deserves no less than that.”
Also during the event, Sister Josephine Garrett of the Sisters of the Holy Family of Nazareth reflected on Ven. Sheen’s practice of making a daily Holy Hour.
“Practically speaking, a holy hour is to place myself before Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament,” Sister Josephine said. “You can pray your Rosary there. You can journal. You can pray with Sacred Scripture. But above all, offer Jesus companionship.”
Sister Josephine said Catholics can take up the practice through the help of the Holy Spirit, before pointing to the place prayer held in Ven. Sheen’s own ministry.
“So often we want to be about the business of many things and then we can fall short of being about the business of prayer,” she said. “But it is that prayer that was like air in the lungs of [Sheen’s] ministry.”
During the webcast, Catholic speaker Paul Kim recalled the more than 1 million people who joined his family in praying through Ven. Sheen’s intercession after his 5-year-old son, Micah, became gravely ill.
Kim said he had prayed at Ven. Sheen’s tomb in Peoria shortly before his son’s illness, describing the experience as a powerful encounter with the archbishop.
“Quite literally a million people plus joined us in prayer asking God for a miracle through the intercession of Sheen,” Kim said.
The miracle they prayed for did not come, and Micah later died. Kim, however, spoke of his son’s death in light of his faith in Christ.
“I know that he is alive because of what Christ did on the cross,” Kim said. “I know that he is in heaven.”
About a month after Micah’s death, Kim recalled, the Holy Father announced that Ven. Sheen’s beatification would move forward.
“I can’t help but think that my son had something to do with that and that those millions of prayers had something to do with moving that forward,” Kim said. “And so it’s a mystery, but I’m grateful.”
During the event, participants also heard from Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka, who explained that beatification marks the final stage before possible sainthood, a step made possible in Ven. Sheen’s cause after the Church recognized a miracle attributed to his intercession, as Zeale News previously reported.
Monsignor Jason Gray, executive director of the Sheen Foundation, recounted the miracle involving James Fulton Engstrom, who was born without a heartbeat or respiration as his family began praying through Ven. Sheen’s intercession.
“It took 61 minutes before the child actually regained heartbeat and respiration,” Monsignor Gray said.
Engstrom, who is now 15 years old, survived without the long-term consequences expected from such a serious event, Monsignor Gray said. Engstrom will attend the beatification and participate in bringing forward Ven. Sheen’s relic during the ceremony.
The foundation is also preparing a morning program intended to draw pilgrims into prayer before the Sept. 24 beatification Mass in St. Louis.
Sister Jude Andrew Link, programming director for the Sheen Foundation, said organizers hope the setting itself will reflect that purpose.
As she noted, “We want them to walk in and to immediately see that this space has been transformed into a sanctuary before that 2 p.m. beatification Mass.”
