The remains of Archbishop Fulton Sheen are to be moved from St Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to the Illinois city of Peoria after a two-year dispute between the two dioceses.
A New York judge ruled in favour of a lawsuit launched by the Diocese of Peoria to bring the remains back to where Archbishop Sheen first served as an altar boy and then was ordained a priest.
The dispute led to the suspension of Archbishop Sheen’s Cause two years ago.
Two years earlier the Vatican had declared the archbishop – an early televangelist who presented the television programme “Life Is Worth Living” in the 1950s – to have lived a life of “heroic virtue”, meaning he is described as Venerable.
A possible miracle is being investigated that would pave the way for his beatification.
Father Melvin Castro, the founder and spiritual director of the Confraternity of Mary, Mediatrix of All Grace, says that supposed Lipa visionary, Sister Teresita Castillo, 89, of Lipa in the Philippines, has died after a lengthy illness. Sister Teresita was at the center of controversial apparitions that have alternately met with acceptance and rejection by the Church, most recently rejection by the Vatican. Prayers are asked. The site as particularly known for “miraculous” rose petals, but questions have been raised about their miraculous nature. Sister herself was never implicated in any wrongdoing.