A Polish-born priest who was deported to Soviet-ruled Central Asia and volunteered to stay on and minister to Catholics has been beatified.
Cardinal Angelo Amato, prefect of the Vatican’s Congregation for Saints’ Causes, said Fr Władysław Bukowiński , who died in 1974, prayed to overcome “fear, hunger and violence, continuing his service at risk of being arrested and sent back to the gulag”.
“His trials before Soviet courts and his time in labour camps gave him a pulpit for witness and evangelisation, from which he taught love of God and neighbour, showing how faith could bring down walls,” Cardinal Amato said during the beatification Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Cathedral, in Karaganda, Kazakhstan.
He said the priest had been a “courageous missionary of Christ in distant lands of Eastern Europe” and found “safety through faith in God and divine providence” at a time of religious persecution and “physical and moral suffering.”
Born in 1904 at Berdychiv, now in Ukraine, Władysław Bukowinski studied law and theology in Kraków, Poland, where he was ordained in 1931.
He was arrested by the Soviet secret police as a “Vatican agent” in 1940.
After a decade ministering to prisoners and forced labourers in Ukraine, Russia and Kazakhstan, he voluntarily sought Soviet citizenship in 1954 to continue his work and became the first Catholic priest for two decades to visit German-speaking Catholics in neighbouring Tajikistan.
Rearrested in 1958 for running “illegal Catholic assemblies”, he spent three years in Siberia before returning to Karaganda, where he continued ministering until his death.
The beatification Mass, concelebrated by bishops from Russia and Poland, was attended by Fr Mariusz Kowalski, whose unexplained cure from a brain haemorrhage in Karaganda in 2008 was attributed to the intercession of the Blessed.
Cardinal Amato said the priest had always been convinced that “Russia would return to Christ” and had viewed his own arrest and deportation as providential events enabling him to reach “places of suffering”.
In his Angelus address, Pope Francis said Blessed Władysław “always showed great love for the weakest and neediest” despite being “persecuted for his faith”.
Europe’s Christian legacy in danger, warns cardinal
Cardinal Christoph Schönborn, Archbishop of Vienna, has said that Europe’s Christian legacy is at risk “because we Europeans have squandered it” – and that Islamists want to take advantage of the situation.
He made the remark in his archdiocesan newspaper to clarify comments in a homily on September 11 that was covered widely by the world’s media.
In his homily at St Stephen’s Cathedral, he said: “Will there be a third Islamic attempt to conquer Europe? Many Muslims think this and wish this and say that Europe is at its end.”
Cardinal Schönborn later clarified: “Europe’s Christian legacy is in danger, because we Europeans have squandered it. That has absolutely nothing to do with Islam nor with the refugees. It is clear that many Islamists would like to take advantage of our weakness, but they are not responsible for it. We are.”
His homily was not a “call to defend ourselves against the refugees”, he said. “The opportunity for a Christian renewal of Europe lies in our hands, if we look at and come to Christ, spread his gospel and deal with our fellow men, strangers included, as he has taught us, in love and responsibility.”
Global Church to hold days of prayer for abuse survivors
Pope Francis celebrated a Requiem Mass last week for Fr Jacques Hamel, the French priest murdered by Islamist youths.
Archbishop Dominique Lebrun of Rouen said the Pope told him to put a picture of Fr Hamel “on the altar” because “he is ‘Blessed’ now, and if anyone says you aren’t allowed, tell them the Pope gave you permission”. The Pope said Fr Hamel’s murder while he was celebrating Mass was “the Satanic line of persecution”.
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