The miracle that led to the beatification of Fulton Sheen

Little James Fulton with his parents in 2014, accompanied by Bishop Jenky, then Bishop of Peoria

The miracle accepted in the cause for the beatification of Bishop Sheen concerns the unexplained recovery of James Fulton Engstrom, a boy who was apparently stillborn on September 16, 2010, to Bonnie and Travis Engstrom, a Catholic couple from the town of Goodfield in the Peoria area. The parents had planned to welcome their third child at home. Although the pregnancy had proceeded without difficulty, a complication arose during labour: a knot had formed in the umbilical cord and tightened during delivery, cutting off James’s supply of oxygen and blood.

The baby was born blue, motionless, and without a pulse. He was not breathing. For 20 minutes, family members and paramedics performed CPR (cardiopulmonary resuscitation) and chest compressions while waiting for the ambulance, which transported him to OSF St. Francis Medical Center in Peoria, less than a mile from the Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception in Peoria, where Fulton Sheen had served as an altar boy, had been ordained a priest, and where his earthly remains now rest. At the hospital, a team of doctors and nurses spent an additional 40 minutes attempting to revive the infant.

Doctors administered two injections of epinephrine (adrenaline) directly into his heart, but this had no effect. One nurse later recalled that the baby’s feet were “ice cold,” a sign of death. A physician later testified that James’s blood gas levels indicated a degree of toxicity typically seen in a person who had been dead for a week.

James Fulton with his parents in February 2026

After 61 minutes without a pulse or breathing, the attending physician was about to declare death when James’s heart suddenly began beating at a normal newborn rate of 148 beats per minute. During that entire hour, Bonnie Engstrom had been unable to pray calmly. She later recounted that she simply repeated the name “Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen” in her mind. The couple had already decided to name their baby after Bishop Sheen, as they had watched reruns of his program Life Is Worth Living during the pregnancy. While James lay lifeless in the living room before the ambulance arrived, Travis Engstrom performed an emergency baptism, naming him James Fulton.

Resuscitation after 61 minutes without oxygen almost certainly guarantees severe brain damage, organ failure, or blindness. Yet, to the great surprise of his medical team, James suffered no organ failure. Within a few weeks, he began reaching normal developmental milestones. At his first birthday, follow-up MRI scans (magnetic resonance imaging) showed that his brain was entirely normal.

Today, James Fulton is a healthy teenager with no physical or intellectual disabilities — something that the Vatican’s medical experts described in 2014 as “scientifically inexplicable.” On July 5, 2019, Pope Francis recognized the authenticity of the healing attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Fulton Sheen and signed the decree permitting his beatification.