*1 Respondents appeal from the order of the Supreme Court, New York County (Arlene P. Bluth, J.), entered on or about November 17, 2016, which granted the petition to disinter the remains of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and transfer them from St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York, New York to St. Mary’s Cathedral in Peoria, Illinois.*2
ROSALYN RICHTER, JUSTICEFulton J. Sheen was a renowned Archbishop of the Roman Catholic Church. Archbishop Sheen was born in 1895 in El Paso, Illinois, and grew up in nearby Peoria. After completing his seminary studies in Minnesota, he returned to Peoria where he was ordained a priest and served his first pastoral assignment. After leaving Peoria, Archbishop Sheen taught in Washington, D.C. for about 25 years. While there, Archbishop Sheen regularly traveled to New York City to host The Catholic Hour, a weekly radio show that was broadcast from 1930-1950. In 1951, he moved to New York and was consecrated a Bishop of the Archdiocese of New York. From 1952-1957, Archbishop Sheen was the host of Life is Worth Living, a weekly television show that drew millions of viewers and won him an Emmy Award. In 1966, Archbishop Sheen was transferred to Rochester, New York, and retired three years later. Archbishop Sheen then returned to New York City, where he remained until his death in 1979.Five days before his death, Archbishop Sheen executed a will, wherein he directed that his funeral service be celebrated at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City, and his burial be in “Calvary Cemetery, the official cemetery of the Archdiocese of New York.” Upon Archbishop Sheen’s death, Terence Cardinal Cooke, then the Archbishop of New York, approached petitioner Joan Sheen Cunningham, Archbishop Sheen’s niece and closest living relative, seeking permission to bury her uncle in the crypt at St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Petitioner consented, and Archbishop Sheen was laid to rest in a crypt under the church’s high altar, where he remains interred.In 2002, Bishop Daniel R. Jenky of the Diocese of Peoria officially began the process of investigating whether Archbishop Sheen should be canonized a Saint of the Roman Catholic Church. According to Bishop Jenky, Archbishop Sheen’s Beatification, the first step toward Sainthood, is “imminent,” and it is anticipated that the Beatification ceremony will take place in Peoria. In 2014, the Diocese of Peoria requested that Archbishop Sheen’s remains be transferred there. Respondents Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral and the Archdiocese of New York declined to transfer the remains, and alleged that petitioner did not want the body to be moved.1In June 2016, petitioner brought a proceeding pursuant to Not-For-Profit Corporation Law §
