The Engstrom Case as Evidence of a Genuine Miracle Through Fulton Sheen's Intercession
Source: https://www.facebook.com/americanspectator/. "Fulton Sheen and a Real-Life Miracle | The American Spectator | USA News and Politics." September 24, 2026. spectator.org
The Gist
The author argues that a baby who was clinically dead for over an hour and then came back to life completely healthy—with his family praying specifically to Bishop Fulton Sheen the whole time—is genuine proof of a miracle. He backs this up by pointing out that the Vatican's notoriously skeptical and rigorous investigation process approved the case, and that even he, a trained skeptic, was convinced.
Conclusion
The recovery of James Fulton Engstrom—stillborn and without vital signs for 61 minutes before spontaneously reviving with no brain damage—constitutes a real, medically inexplicable miracle attributable to the intercession of Bishop Fulton Sheen.
Premises
- Medical science establishes that brain damage occurs after only a few minutes without oxygen (roughly six minutes maximum), yet the baby showed no signs of brain damage after 61+ minutes without a pulse or heartbeat.
- The baby's heartbeat and vital signs spontaneously returned to completely normal levels just as medical personnel had given up and declared him dead, with no medical intervention causing the change.
- The family specifically and exclusively prayed for Fulton Sheen's intercession during the crisis, creating a direct causal link between the prayer and the outcome.
- The Vatican employs an extremely rigorous, adversarial vetting process (including an official 'Devil's Advocate') specifically designed to rule out natural explanations and fraudulent claims.
- A seven-member Vatican board of medical advisers unanimously approved this case as medically inexplicable, and a subsequent team of theologians also approved it.
- The Vatican considers only the most remarkable claims and rejects the vast majority of purported miracles, making its approval of this case especially significant.
- The author himself approached the story with trained scientific skepticism (as a former biochemistry/biophysics student and self-described agnostic/atheist) yet found the case compelling.
Assumptions
- Events that current medical science cannot explain must be attributed to supernatural/divine causation rather than to gaps in current medical knowledge or undocumented natural phenomena.
- The Vatican's investigative process is a reliable and sufficient method for establishing that an event is genuinely miraculous rather than merely rare or currently unexplained.
- Correlation between prayer to a specific intercessor and a positive outcome indicates causation by that intercessor.
- The medical facts as reported (61 minutes without pulse, no brain damage) are accurately and completely documented and are not subject to measurement error, resuscitation ambiguity, or exaggeration over time.
- Divine intervention operates through specific human intercessors (saints) who can be petitioned by name.