Beatified and ‘Based’: Why Gen Z Catholics Are Falling for Fulton Sheen

Tim and Katie Blatchford selected a prayer for the canonization of Venerable Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen to print on their wedding cards in August 2025. The couple in their twenties had decided to make Sheen the patron of their marriage. On a trip to New York they stopped at St. Patrick’s Cathedral to pray that same canonization prayer at the spot where Sheen had once been buried before his remains were moved to his hometown of Peoria Illinois. Sheen died in 1979 yet his talks from the 1950s continue to reach people who never saw his original broadcasts. His Emmy-winning program Life Is Worth Living once drew an estimated thirty million viewers a week. Short clips from those programs now circulate on TikTok and Instagram where young viewers comment on his ferraiolo cape and direct manner of speaking. One viewer called the attire the holy drip. Another praised the cloak and said it gave him holy aura. Comments also note his voice and the way he wrote on a chalkboard during the shows. Some users describe his remarks as the only influencer they accept and label his jokes as based. A clip in which Sheen compared suffering to the tightening of violin strings that produces a better melody drew responses from people who said they had not heard words that true in a long time. Even viewers who are not Catholic wrote that they loved everything they had heard in the reels and wondered how the man remained relevant. Dominican Father Vincent Bernhard serves as chaplain at New York University. He first knew Sheen from EWTN reruns and once thought of him as a distant figure in a cape. After listening more closely during college he found the clarity of the preaching unlike anything else he had heard. He now tells people that Sheen speaks clearly about important issues and stays unapologetically Catholic while pointing everything toward Jesus Christ. Jim Lewis II a twenty-six-year-old from Pekin Illinois came across Sheen during a difficult stretch in his own life. After speaking with a group of religious sisters about his wish to be accepted for who he was they showed him a documentary on the archbishop. Lewis learned that Sheen had grown up near his own hometown and began to follow the older priest’s example. Young Catholics first notice the appearance and delivery then stay for the content of the talks. The same qualities that once filled television screens now draw fresh attention on phones and tablets. Sheen’s words on marriage family and the spiritual life keep finding listeners who treat him as a steady guide rather than a figure from the past.