How to Get Kids Excited About Beatification of Fulton Sheen!
When kids think of saints, they almost always picture ancient history: Roman catacombs, desert hermits, or statues from hundreds of years ago. To a student sitting in a modern classroom, sainthood can feel distant, unrelatable, and completely disconnected from their reality.
Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen completely shatters that idea.
He didn’t live in medieval times. He was born in Illinois, drove cars, hosted prime-time television broadcasts, won an Emmy Award, and preached right through television cameras and microphones. Now, we are watching this everyday American priest be declared “Blessed” on the path to full sainthood.
This isn’t ancient history. It is a live-action look at how the Church recognizes holiness right now.
If you want to bring this historic moment into your classroom or parish without spending your entire weekend prepping, here is an easy, meaningful way to connect kids to his story.
1. Show Them the Modern Path to Sainthood
Kids are naturally curious about the mechanics of sainthood once they realize real, modern people can become saints. Fulton Sheen’s beatification is the ultimate “teachable moment” to show that holiness is alive and well.
Focus on three quick concepts:
- The Steps: Walk through the official stages—from Servant of God to Venerable, Blessed, and Saint.
- Everyday Courage (Heroic Virtue): Remind students that saints aren’t perfect cartoon superheroes. They were real people who woke up every morning and made intentional choices to love God and serve others.
- Modern Miracles: The Church does not just take someone’s word for it. Explain the deep, scientific, medical investigations that take place to verify a true miracle before beatification happens.
2. Connect With Fulton Sheen’s Relatable Story
Fulton Sheen’s story instantly grabs kids because he was a master communicator who met people right where they were:
- A regular kid with big dreams: He grew up in the Midwest and heard God’s call as a boy serving at the altar.
- The original Catholic media pioneer: Long before podcasts, YouTube, or social media, he recognized that technology could be used for good. He competed head-to-head with top Hollywood stars on television and won over millions of viewers of all faiths.
- His anchor: No matter how famous he got, he never skipped his daily Holy Hour before the Blessed Sacrament.
3. Use Ready-to-Go, Differentiated Lessons about Fulton Sheen
You don’t have to reinvent the wheel or dig through research papers to explain all this to your students. In order to make this milestone event completely turnkey for educators, I put together a bundle of activities about the Sainthood process & Fulton Sheen.
It bridges real Catholic doctrine with strong reading comprehension:
- Beatification Reading Activity: Explains beatification, miracles, and the Cause of Canonization with leveled texts, questions, discussion prompts, writing pages, and word searches.
- Fulton Sheen Biography Activity: Highlights his life, vocation, media ministry, and journey to holiness.
- Canonization & Sainthood Overview: A kid-friendly guide to how holy men and women are officially recognized by the Church.
- World Mission Rosary Activity: Connects students to the special, colorful rosary Sheen invented to pray for every corner of the globe.
Every reading activity comes with three differentiated reading levels, in order to make it simple to hand the right passage to every student in your room with zero prep work.
4. Add a Hands-On World Mission Rosary Connection
Fulton Sheen created the World Mission Rosary in order to encourage Catholics to pray for missionaries worldwide, using a different color for each decade:
- Green: Africa
- Blue: Oceania
- White: Europe
- Red: The Americas
- Yellow: Asia
If you want a fun activity to go along with the lessons, making World Mission Rosaries would be an awesome connection!
- [Check out this complete World Mission Rosary Craft Kit (affiliate link)]: This set has the exact traditional decade colors ready to assemble, making it great for individual projects or small groups.
- [Browse this budget-friendly bulk bead set (affiliate link)]: That first kit is a bit expensive for a whole-class activity, so here is a cheaper alternative. The colors aren’t traditional, but the kids can create their own connections to remember which mission fields correspond to each color!
Moments like this don’t come around often. Let’s show our kids that the Church isn’t stuck in the past. She is vibrant, holy, and creating saints right now.
More Ideas to Help Kids Connect to the Church
- Tips for Using the Catholic Kids Bulletins
- Daily Slides: Get Older Kids Thinking About the Mass Readings
- Start Class with Prayer & Bible Readings
- Five Tips to Teach the Catholic Mass
- Five Ways to Get Kids Talking about Church
- Mass Order Sorting Cards
- Early Reading Mass Order Books!
- Ideas to Use the Catholic Kids Bulletins
