A Catholic media star will be beatified in St. Louis, moving a step closer to sainthood

Bishop Fulton J. Sheen at his office at in New York during the 1950s. Sheen will be beatified on Thursday in St. Louis. Eddie Adams/AP hide caption

(RNS) — In 1953, Lucille Ball, the star of the hit show "I Love Lucy," was up for an Emmy for "Most Outstanding Personality."

"I feel it is time I pay tribute to my four writers — Matthew, Mark, Luke and John," Sheen reportedly quipped as he accepted the award.

This Thursday, the bishop who charmed millions while scrawling theological concepts on a blackboard for his show "Life Is Worth Living" will come one step closer to being declared a saint. His beatification, which comes after the Vatican found that he lived a life of "heroic virtue" and that his intercession was responsible for a miracle, leaves him one miracle shy of sainthood.

Sheen's beatification Mass will take place in St. Louis' former NFL Stadium, the Dome at America's Center, and will be presided over by Cardinal Luis Antonio Tagle, a media star of his own in the Philippines. It will also be broadcast by Catholic media giant EWTN and livestreamed on the YouTube channel of the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois, the diocese where Sheen was ordained.

For Sheen's fans and the team promoting his sainthood cause, the beatification is a moment to celebrate his enduring impact on evangelization, Catholic media and U.S. spirituality.

"One of his lasting legacies," said Bishop Louis Tylka of Peoria, Ill., the promoter of Sheen's cause for canonization, "is the example and invitation for us to, like him, deepen our friendship with Jesus each and every day by being people of prayer, and in particular, praying in front of the Blessed Sacrament."

Tylka said Sheen's example of praying for an hour a day before the Eucharist — a practice he called the Holy Hour — helped popularize the devotion.