James Fulton Engstrom is held by his parents, Travis and Bonnie Engstrom, Sept. 7, 2011, at the Spalding Pastoral Center in Peoria, Ill., as a tribunal began investigating the boy’s miraculous healing through the intercession of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen. With them are Andrea Ambrosi, postulator of Archbishop Sheen’s sainthood cause, and Peoria Bishop Daniel R. Jenky. (Jennifer Willems/CNS, via The Catholic Post)
PEORIA, Ill. (CNS) — As Bonnie
Engstrom watched lifesaving measures being taken for her son, who had been born
just moments before without a pulse or drawing breath, she asked for help from
the person whose prayerful support she had sought throughout her pregnancy:
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen.
Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen
Born: May 8, 1895 Ordained: Sept. 20, 1919 for the Diocese of Peoria, Illinois Consecrated: June 11, 1951 Service as bishop:
1950-1966, National Director of the Society for the Propagation of the Faith
After 61 minutes, just as emergency
room personnel were about to pronounce him dead, James Fulton Engstrom began to
breathe and his heart rate shot up to a normal level for a newborn. Despite
dire prognoses for his future, the child has thrived and is now a healthy
8-year-old who likes chicken nuggets, “Star Wars” and riding his bicycle.
Those who have heard the story of the
Washington, Illinois, boy call it a miracle, and Pope Francis has made it
official. At a July 5 audience with Cardinal Angelo Becciu, prefect of the
Congregation for Saints’ Causes, the pope formally approved the miracle
attributed to the intercession of Archbishop Sheen, moving him one step closer
to beatification.
With the miracle confirmed, the
Diocese of Peoria can formally begin planning for the beatification of
Archbishop Sheen, according to a July 6 statement from Bishop Daniel R. Jenky.
It added that while the date for that is unknown, Bishop Jenky “hopes and prays”
that it will be announced soon.
In a recent interview with The
Catholic Post, Peoria’s diocesan newspaper, Bonnie Engstrom said God had
allowed the miracle to happen for His honor and glory.
“I really don’t think it was given
to us, for us,” she said. “I think it was given to the Church, for the Church.”
After a “beautifully easy”
pregnancy, Bonnie Engstrom went into labor with James Fulton the evening of
Sept. 15, 2010. Mother and baby had been healthy, and as his planned home birth
progressed, he had a “perfect” heart rate.
As they prepared to welcome this
baby into their family, which already included daughter Lydia and son Bennet,
Bonnie and Travis Engstrom made room for another special friend — Archbishop
Sheen.
“I remember Travis and I were
watching YouTube videos of Bishop Sheen preaching and there’s old footage of
him on a television game show,” Bonnie said. “We were so impressed — he’s
funny, he’s smart, and he’s just so approachable and warm. We were just so
engaged with him.”
While Archbishop Sheen was a world-famous
media pioneer who also had taught at The Catholic University of America in
Washington and headed the Society for the Propagation of the Faith, his roots
were just down the road in El Paso, Illinois. They knew his cause for
canonization was being sponsored by the Diocese of Peoria, so the Engstroms
decided if their unborn child was a boy, they would name him James Fulton.
“I started asking, basically on a
daily basis, for Fulton Sheen’s prayers, for his intercession in the life of my
child and in our marriage — to walk with us and to walk with my son, that he would
be a lifelong Catholic who would love God and love his faith, that he would be
a man of integrity,” Bonnie said. “I was asking him to intercede every day
while I was pregnant.”
She counted on that intercession
again when, unbeknown to them, a rare true knot formed in James Fulton’s
umbilical cord and tightened during the final stages of labor. He was blue and
lifeless when he arrived at 1:48 a.m. Sept. 16, 2010.
“I remember sitting on my bedroom
floor and watching them do CPR and in my head repeating over and over and over
again, ‘Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen, Fulton Sheen,’” Bonnie said. “I
really think it was the Holy Spirit giving me the words I needed to say in that
moment, because I had no words.”
And after months of asking for
Archbishop Sheen’s intercession, she said it was the most natural thing in the
world to turn to him again and ask him to pray for her son.
Taken to OSF HealthCare St. Francis
Medical Center in Peoria, James Fulton was given advanced medical treatment,
but doctors determined he couldn’t be revived. After 61 minutes, however, his
little heart started to beat.
The Engstroms were told he would
probably be blind, and never walk, talk or be able to feed himself, but in the
days and weeks that followed the boy defied them all and continued to make
progress.
In September 2011, the Diocese of
Peoria initiated an investigation into the events of James Fulton’s recovery,
hearing testimony from family members, first responders, doctors, nurses and
others present at his birth. Each testified that there was no medical
explanation for the infant’s recovery.
The case was sent to the
Congregation for Saints’ Causes in December 2011, and reviewed by panels of
medical experts, theologians and the cardinals and bishops of the congregation.
The miracle received a unanimous recommendation from them all.
The day after Archbishop Sheen’s
remains returned to Peoria, Bonnie Engstrom brought five of her eight children,
including James Fulton, to pray at his tomb.
“I still need his prayers. That’s
what I was sitting there telling him: ‘I need you to stick by me and help me.
Don’t stop interceding for James,’” she told The Catholic Post. “We need
his prayers. I feel like we need his prayers just as much now as we did then.”
— By Jennifer Willems, Catholic
News Service. Willems is assistant editor of THE CATHOLIC POST, newspaper of
the Diocese of Peoria.