The Archdiocese of New York announced on Friday that the Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral are appealing a court decision that would allow Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen’s body to be moved to Peoria, Illinois, as his cause for beatification proceeds.
The Trustees, who oversee archdiocesan seminaries, “believe that the recent court case concerning the earthly remains of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was again incorrectly decided, and will seek an appeal of that decision along with a stay on moving the remains while the appellate court considers the case,” said a June 15 statement.
“At issue in the case, as the appellate court noted in its reversal of the trial court’s original decision, is what were Archbishop’s Sheen’s personal wishes concerning his final resting place,” the statement said.
“As Trustees, it is our responsibility to respect those wishes, and we believe that this most recent decision once again fails to consider those wishes and instead relies on the speculation and conjecture of others.”
Last week, the Superior Court of New York ruled in favor of Joan Sheen Cunningham, who had petitioned to move the body of her uncle, Fulton Sheen, to the Cathedral of St. Mary in Peoria. The body of the late archbishop is currently in St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City.
Judge Arlene Bluth, ruled that “the location of Archbishop Sheen’s final resting place would not have been his primary concern” and that “it makes no sense, given his lifelong devotion to the Catholic Church, that he would choose a location over the chance to become a saint.”
The Peoria diocese opened the cause for Sheen’s canonization in 2002 after the Archdiocese of New York said it would not explore the case. In 2012, Benedict XVI recognized the heroic virtues of the archbishop.
However, Bishop Daniel Jenky of Peoria suspended the beatification cause in September 2014 on the grounds that the Holy See expected Sheen’s remains to be in the Peoria diocese.
The Archdiocese of New York, however, has said that Vatican officials have said the Peoria diocese can pursue Sheen’s canonization regardless of whether his body is at rest there.
This grotesque and gruesome display brings nothing but disdain upon the Church.
Quietly at work behind the claims of “personal wishes” and “causes for sainthood” is the callous desire to locate the late Archbishop’s body in a place which, should he indeed be declared a Saint, might become a mecca for pilgrimages and certain for donations to the coffers of the diocese in which he is finally interred.
The whole matter is unseemly and every party to it should be rightfully ashamed of themselves.
But situations of this nature are not unknown elsewhere.
In the Archdiocese of Saint Louis, it was almost universally accepted that Joseph Cardinal Ritter had expressed a desire to be buried in the Priests’ Lot at Calvary Cemetery.
His predecessor, John Cardinal Glennon, had been enormously popular and was buried in the upper of a two tomb crypt in the unfinished basement of the Cathedral Basilica. Cardinal Ritter is rumored to have stated, “I lived under the shadow of Cardinal Glennon. I shall not rest under that shadow in death.”
Nevertheless, when the basement of the Cathedral Basilica was finally made suitable for public use, a crypt was built around the tomb of Cardinal Glennon with spaces for the earthly remains of future Archbishops. Cardinal Ritter’s desires notwithstanding, his body was removed from Calvary Cemetery and placed in the new crypt of the Cathedral Basilica wherein now along side him lay the bodies of John Cardinal Carberry and Archbishop John Lawrence May.
We Catholics offer a prayer which pleads, “May they rest in peace.”
It seems as though even that simple and dignified plea is no longer respected by the likes of the New York, Peoria and elsewhere.
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