ROME (AP) — The Vatican has given the green light, again, to beatify Archbishop Fulton Sheen, the popular U.S. radio and TV preacher whose path to sainthood was derailed first by a lengthy court battle over his remains and then by concerns about how he handled clergy sexual misconduct cases.
After a rare six-year delay to investigate the concerns, Sheen's beatification can now take place in Peoria, Ill., as originally planned, the Peoria diocese announced Monday.
No new date for the ceremony, the last major step before possible sainthood, was immediately announced. But the Vatican's approval now sets the stage for the Illinois-born Sheen to be beatified during the pontificate of the Illinois-born Pope Leo XIV.
“The Holy See has informed me that the cause for the Venerable Servant of God Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen can proceed to beatification," Peoria Bishop Louis Tylka said in a written and video statement on the websites of the diocese and the Sheen foundation. “We are working with the Dicastery of the Causes of Saints at the Vatican to determine the details for the upcoming beatification.”
Sheen was an enormously effective evangelizer in the 20th century U.S. church, who in some ways pioneered televangelism with his 1950s television series, “Life is Worth Living.” According to Catholic University of America, where he studied and taught before he was made a bishop, Sheen won an Emmy Award, was featured on the cover of Time Magazine "and became one of the most influential Catholics of the 20th century.”
Pope Francis had confirmed a miracle attributed to Sheen’s intercession on July 6, 2019 and had set his beatification for Dec. 21 that year in Peoria. But with less than three weeks’ notice, the Vatican postponed the ceremony indefinitely.
It acted after the diocese of Rochester, N.Y., where Sheen served as bishop from 1966-1969, asked for further investigation into Sheen’s tenure and “his role in priests’ assignments.”
The concerns focused on Sheen’s handling of two cases of priests accused of sexual misconduct. Sheen was never accused of abuse himself. A top canonical affairs official from Peoria, Monsignor James Kruse, said in 2019 that an investigation had cleared Sheen of any wrongdoing. Kruse later complained that the Rochester diocese was “sabotaging” the cause, writing a lengthy essay that had been posted on the official Sheen beatification site but later taken down.
Peoria Bishop Tylka's statement made no reference to the concerns that prompted the delay in 2019.
The 2019 investigation was the latest obstacle to hinder Sheen’s cause, coming after an expensive, years-long legal battle between Sheen’s relatives in Peoria and the New York City archdiocese over his final resting place.
Sheen, who died in 1979, was interred under the altar of St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. His remains were returned to Peoria in 2019 after a court ruled Sheen’s niece could bury him there.
Among those celebrating the Vatican's new green light to beatify Sheen was The Pontifical Missions Societies in the U.S., the Vatican's main missionary fundraising office in the U.S., which Sheen headed from 1950-1966. Sheen left most of his patrimony, including writings and audio recordings, to the organization, which raises money for the Catholic Church in Africa, Asia, Latin America and other mission areas.
"It is profoundly moving that, in God’s providence, the first U.S.–born pope is able to advance the cause of his fellow Illinois native, the most iconic evangelizer ever produced by the American Church,” Monsignor Roger Landry, national director of the office, said in a statement.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
Pope Leo XIV appears at his studio window to deliver the traditional Sunday blessing to faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the noon Angelus prayer, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
Pope Leo XIV appears at his studio window to deliver the traditional Sunday blessing to faithful and pilgrims gathered in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican for the noon Angelus prayer, Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (AP Photo/Gregorio Borgia)
FILE - This Oct. 26, 1966 file photo shows Bishop Fulton J. Sheen in his office at the Propagation of Faith in New York. (AP Photo/Eddie Adams, file)
Lawmakers tried Monday to interview Ghislaine Maxwell, but the former girlfriend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein invoked her 5th Amendment rights to avoid answering questions that would be incriminating.
She was questioned during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she’s serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She’s come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years. The deposition comes on the same day that the Department of Justice began allowing members of Congress to review unredacted files related to Epstein files, according to a letter that was sent to lawmakers.
President Donald Trump has lashed out at reporters raising questions about the Epstein files, demanding that the country “get onto something else,” but that’s highly unlikely. Many of the documents haven’t been released, and many of those now public were heavily redacted.
Republican Rep. James Comey, who chairs the House Oversight Committee, came under pressure to hold the Maxwell deposition as he pressed to enforce subpoenas on former President Bill Clinton and former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. After Comer threatened them with contempt of Congress charges, they both agreed to sit for depositions later this month.
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Lawmakers tried to depose the former girlfriend and confidante of Jeffrey Epstein on Monday, but she invoked 5th Amendment rights to avoid answering incriminating questions.
They spoke during a video call to the federal prison camp in Texas where she’s serving a 20-year sentence for sex trafficking. She’s come under new scrutiny as lawmakers try to investigate how Epstein, a well-connected financier, was able to sexually abuse underage girls for years.
“It is without precedent in modern American history,” said the American Civil Liberties Union’s Naureen Shah in Washington.
She said the idea of masked patrols seeking immigrants on city streets can leave people scared and confused about who they are encountering — which she suggested is part of the point.
“I think it’s calculated to terrify people,” she said. “I don’t think anybody viscerally feels like, OK, this is something we want to become a permanent fixture in our streets.”
There seems to be little common ground over the issue in the debate over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.
House Democratic Leader Hakeem Jeffries told reporters at the Capitol that unmasking the federal agents is a “hard red line” in the negotiations ahead.
But Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., said he just can’t agree with Democrats on this point. “You know, there’s a lot of vicious people out there, and they’ll take a picture of your face, and the next thing you know, your children or your wife or your husband are being threatened at home,” he said.
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Trump said it’s hard to cheer for American Olympians who are speaking out against his administration’s policies.
Asked at a news conference at the Milan Cortina Games how they feel representing the U.S. while ICE agents are detaining immigrants back home, freestyle skier Hunter Hess replied that he had mixed emotions: “If it aligns with my moral values, I feel like I’m representing it,” Hess said. “Just because I’m wearing the flag doesn’t mean I represent everything that’s going on in the U.S.”
“Hess, a real Loser, says he doesn’t represent his Country in the current Winter Olympics. If that’s the case, he shouldn’t have tried out for the Team, and it’s too bad he’s on it,” Trump wrote on his Truth Social account.
Trump, a former reality TV star and dominant social media presence, usually is in touch with ratings and what they mean in the world of entertainment, politics and sports. But his take on Bad Bunny is off. By a lot.
Contrary to Trump’s statement suggestion that Bad Bunny has no appeal, the singer from the U.S. territory of Puerto Rico has been among the world’s most popular artists for years. He was Spotify’s most listened-to artist in 2020, 2021, 2022 and 2025, eclipsing Taylor Swift -- another frequent target of the U.S. president -- with nearly 20 billion streams last year.
Last week, he took home album of the year at the 2026 Grammys for his “Debí Tirar Más Fotos,” the first all-Spanish language album to win the top prize.
In a social media post Sunday night, the president said the Grammy-winning top-streaming megastar Bad Bunny “doesn’t represent our standards of Success, Creativity, or Excellence. Nobody understands a word this guy is saying, and the dancing is disgusting.”
Bad Bunny performed nearly entirely in Spanish, recreating his native Puerto Rico from sugar cane fields to a raucous wedding featuring Lady Gaga. And in a country where masked ICE agents are pulling people from their homes and neighborhoods, his patriotism was political:
He carried a football with “Together we are America,” written on the pigskin, and he wrapped up by leading a phalanx of dancers carrying the flags of many Latin American nations and Canada along with the Stars and Stripes, shouting “God Bless America — All of America!”
Behind him, a screen read “The only thing more powerful than hate is love,” repeating comments he made at the 2026 Grammys.
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The FBI pored over Jeffrey Epstein’s bank records and emails. It searched his homes. It spent years interviewing his victims and examining his connections to some of the world’s most influential people.
But while investigators collected ample proof that Epstein sexually abused underage girls, they found scant evidence the well-connected financier led a sex trafficking ring serving powerful men, an Associated Press review of internal Justice Department records shows.
Videos and photos seized from Epstein’s homes in New York, Florida and the Virgin Islands didn’t depict victims being abused or implicate anyone else in his crimes, a prosecutor wrote in one 2025 memo.
An examination of Epstein’s financial records, including payments he made to entities linked to influential figures in academia, finance and global diplomacy, found no connection to criminal activity, said another internal memo in 2019.
While one Epstein victim made highly public claims that he “lent her” to his rich friends, agents couldn’t confirm that and found no other victims telling a similar story, the records said.
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Beyond the car windows being smashed, people tackled on city streets — or even a little child with a floppy bunny ears snowcap detained — the images of masked federal officers has become a flashpoint in the Trump administration’s immigration enforcement operations.
Not in recent U.S. memory has an American policing operation so consistently masked its thousands of officers from the public, a development that the Department of Homeland Security believes is important to safeguard employees from online harassment. But experts warn masking serves another purpose, inciting fear in communities, and risks shattering norms, accountability and trust between the police and its citizenry.
Whether to ban the masks — or allow the masking to continue — has emerged as a central question in the debate in Congress over funding Homeland Security ahead of Friday’s midnight deadline, when it faces a partial agency shutdown.
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Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz listens as President Donald Trump speaks about TrumpRx in the South Court Auditorium in the Old Eisenhower Executive Office Building on the White House campus, Thursday, Feb. 5, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)
A leading U.S. health official on Sunday urged people to get inoculated against the measles at a time of outbreaks across several states and as the United States is at risk of losing its measles elimination status.
“Take the vaccine, please,” said Dr. Mehmet Oz, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services administrator whose boss has raised suspicion about the safety and importance of vaccines. “We have a solution for our problem.”
Oz, a heart surgeon, defended some recently revised federal vaccine recommendations as well as past comments from President Donald Trump and the nation’s health chief, Robert F. Kennedy Jr., about the efficacy of vaccines. From Oz, there was a clear message on the measles. “Not all illnesses are equally dangerous and not all people are equally susceptible to those illnesses,” he told CNN’s “State of the Union.” “But measles is one you should get your vaccine.”
An outbreak in South Carolina in the hundreds has surpassed the recorded case count in Texas’ 2025 outbreak, and there is also one on the Utah-Arizona border. Multiple other states have had confirmed cases this year. The outbreaks have mostly impacted children and have come as infectious disease experts warn that rising public distrust of vaccines generally may be contributing to the spread of a disease once declared eradicated by public health officials.
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Attorney General Pam Bondi, center, flanked by FBI Director Kash Patel, left, and Jeanine Pirro, U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia, appears before reporters at the Justice Department, Friday, Feb. 6, 2026, in Washington, to announce the capture of a key participant in the 2012 attack on a U.S. compound that killed four Americans in Benghazi, Libya. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
Bad Bunny performs during the halftime show of Super Bowl 60 between the Seattle Seahawks and New England Patriots in Santa Clara, Calif., Sunday, Feb. 8, 2026. (Carlos Avila Gonzalez/San Francisco Chronicle via AP)
President Donald Trump waves to the media as he walks on the South Lawn upon his arrival to the White House, Monday, Feb. 9, 2026, in Washington. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)
