VATICAN CITY (LifeSiteNews) — Pope Leo XIV on Monday praised Venerable Fulton J. Sheen’s works of evangelization during an address to participants in the General Assembly of the Pontifical Mission Societies, the official missionary arm of the Church.

In his June 1 remarks, Pope Leo noted Archbishop Sheen’s upcoming beatification, calling him “a light of faith, hope, and love” whose broadcasts “touched millions with the hope of the Gospel” for decades. The American pontiff stressed that he is a witness to the evangelization of Archbishop Sheen, who served as the National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States. Leo noted that he watched and listened to his broadcasts while growing up.

“It is also providential that this year, on 24 September, in Saint Louis, Missouri, a renowned National Director of the Pontifical Mission Societies in the United States of America, the Venerable Fulton J. Sheen, will be beatified,” Leo said.

“Archbishop Sheen was a light of faith, hope, and love that shone through the radio and television media for decades. I myself am a witness of his evangelization when I was growing up,” the pontiff added. “His broadcasts touched millions with the hope of the Gospel and his initiatives and efforts resulted in enormous spiritual and material aid to the Churches in areas of first evangelization. May our new Blessed be an example for all of the National and Diocesan Directors of the Pontifical Mission Societies throughout the world.”

READ: Secure your Sheen celebrations with LifeSiteNews today

Venerable Fulton J. Sheen will be beatified on Thursday, September 24, 2026, in St. Louis, Missouri. Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, pro-prefect of the Dicastery for Evangelization, will preside at the beatification Mass as Pope Leo XIV’s representative.

Beatification, the first major step towards canonization, means the sovereign pontiff has declared that the individual not only lived a holy life but is in Heaven and requires that one miracle be attributed to his or her intercession. In 2019, Pope Francis recognized the miraculous healing of a stillborn child that had been credited to the late archbishop’s intercession.

His beatification was initially approved in 2019 but was delayed by the Diocese of Rochester, New York, as a supposed precautionary measure, as the diocese, where he served as bishop, faced over 70 sex abuse allegations. However, the late bishop of Rochester had never been accused of abuse or cover-up.

READ: Vatican sets date for Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s beatification

Archbishop Sheen was a popular teacher and radio and television personality in the 1950s and 1960s in the United States. His television show “Life is Worth Living” reached millions of viewers of all backgrounds, supplementing more than 50 books.

He preached several sermons and conferences that are especially relevant in today’s crisis in both the Church and the world.

In one remarkable teaching on confession in the mid-1970s, he discussed sin and its resulting weight of guilt on overall health, zeroing in on the U.S. Supreme Court’s recent Roe v. Wade decision legalizing abortion.

“Just think, my dear ladies, of how many mentally disturbed women we are going to have in the United States in the next 10 or 15 years when the guilt of abortion begins to attack the mind and soul,” Archbishop Sheen said.

Fulton Sheen’s old clip on abortion is going VIRAL.

“Just think of how many mentally disturbed women we are going have in the United States in the next 10 or 15 years when the guilt of abortion begins to attack the mind and soul.” pic.twitter.com/kQh8chy6nv

— Sign of the Cross (@CatholicSOTC) January 13, 2026

In 1947, in one of his most memorable radio sermons, then-Bishop Sheen laid out the dozen or so tricks that the anti-Christ would use to destroy Christians and declared that the anti-Christ would set up a “counter church” or the “ape of the Church.”

“(The antichrist) will write books on the new idea of God to suit the way people live. He will invoke religion to destroy religion. He will even speak of Christ and say that he was the greatest man who ever lived,” Bishop Sheen said at the time.

“In the midst of all his seeming love for humanity and his glib talk of freedom and equality, he will have one great secret which he will tell to no one; he will not believe in God,” the bishop added. “And because his religion will be brotherhood without the fatherhood of God, he will deceive even the elect.”

He continued:

He will set up a counter-Church, which will be the ape of the Church because he, the devil, is the ape of God. It will be the mystical body of the anti-Christ that will, in all externals, resemble the Church as the mystical body of Christ. In desperate need for God, he will induce modern man, in his loneliness and frustration, to hunger more and more for membership in his community that will give man enlargement of purpose, without any need of personal amendment and without the admission of personal guilt. These are days in which the devil has been given a particularly long rope.

Archbishop Sheen died in New York at the age of 84, on December 9, 1979.

To join LifeSiteNews at a special gala dinner in St. Louis to celebrate his beatification this September, click here.