The body of an archbishop of the Archdiocese of New York will remain buried in St. Patrick’s Cathedral pending the outcome of a hearing to determine his wishes.
That’s the decision of a state appeals court in Manhattan, which overturned a ruling by a trial judge who granted a request by the niece of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen to move his remains to Peoria, Illinois from beneath the cathedral’s high altar.
The dispute came before the courts in June 2016, when Joan Sheen Cunningham brought a proceeding under state law to disinter the remains of her uncle and transfer them to a crypt in St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria.
The request followed a decision by the archdiocese to refuse a request by the Diocese of Peoria to transfer the remains of Archbishop Sheen, whom the diocese in Illinois sought to canonize.
Church officials in New York alleged that Cunningham had previously agreed to her uncle’s burial in St. Patrick’s and that Sheen, in a will signed five days before his death in 1979, directed that his funeral service be celebrated at St. Patrick’s and that he be buried at Calvary Cemetery in Queens.
Following Sheen’s death, the archbishop of New York sought Cunningham’s consent, which she gave, to bury her uncle in St. Patrick’s.
At trial, Cunningham asserted that had her uncle known during his lifetime that he would be declared a saint, he would have wished to be interred at St. Mary’s, where he attended services with his family as a boy, received his first communion and was ordained a priest.
The church countered with an affidavit of Monsignor Hilary Franco, who served as Sheen’s assistant from 1962 to 1967 and remained his friend. According to Franco, Sheen expressed a desire – one that may resonate with some New Yorkers – to remain in the city “even after his death.” According to Franco, Sheen also “was fond of repeating” that the cardinal had offered that he be buried in the crypt at St. Patrick’s.
The trial court found that the failure to follow Sheen’s request that he be buried at Calvary Cemetery and the absence of conflicting accounts of his wishes provided “good and substantial reasons” to disinter his remains and rebury them in Peoria.
The Appellate Division disagreed. “A hearing is required because there are disputed issues of material fact as to Archbishop Sheen’s wishes,” Justice Rosalyn Richter wrote for the majority.
The trial court “failed to give appropriate consideration to the affidavit of Monsignor Franco, and too narrowly defined the inquiry into Archbishop Sheen’s wishes,” said Richter, noting both that Franco had stated Sheen’s desire to remain in New York after his death and testimony by Cunningham that there was “nobody in the world closer to my uncle than me” and that Sheen was “a second father” to her.
According to the majority, it also remained unclear whether a statement in Sheen’s will that he desired to be buried in “Calvary Cemetery, the official cemetery of the Archdiocese of New York” showed an intention to remain buried in the city or merely described the cemetery.
Though a dissent by two of her colleagues relied on Sheen’s will to conclude that he did not wish to be buried in St. Patrick’s, the state’s highest court has “rejected such a narrow approach,” said Richter.
After leaving Peoria, Sheen taught for 25 years in Washington, D.C. While there, he traveled regularly to New York City to host The Catholic Hour, a weekly radio show that aired from 1930 to 1950.
From 1952 to 1957, Sheen, who was consecrated as a bishop in New York, hosted “Life is Worth Living,” a weekly television series that earned him an Emmy Award.