Meet Poland’s first martyr of Communism

By Dorota Abdelmoula-Viet

Addressing the Polish pilgrims present during today’s General Audience, Pope Leo XIV recalled the figure of Blessed Father Władysław Findysz, the first beatified martyr of the communist persecution in Poland. The Pope said this blessed “reminds us that a civilization of love is built by forgiving and overcoming evil with good.”

The story of Blessed Father Findysz reveals the extent of the communist authorities’ hostility towards the Catholic Church.

Falsely accused of forcing people to engage in religious practices, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison. During his imprisonment, Father Findysz was subjected to physical and psychological abuse, while the authorities prevented him from undergoing a planned operation for oesophageal cancer. Released in a state of extreme exhaustion, he died several months later, regarded as a man of holiness.

“Neither prison nor death could separate him from Christ or from the sheep entrusted to his care,” Pope Francis wrote of him in a message marking the 50th anniversary of his martyrdom. “May Blessed Władysław be an invitation to all priests to fidelity, holiness and complete dedication to Christ and to their brothers and sisters in their daily ministry. May he be for all the faithful a sign and example of trust in God and of radical attachment to Christ and to the values that the Gospel proposes to everyone.”

The young Father Władysław Findysz (@https://www.santiebeati.it/)   (@https://www.santiebeati.it/)

A vocation forged through a difficult childhood

Findysz was born in 1907 in Krościenko Niżne, near Krosno in southern Poland, then under Austrian rule. His childhood was marked by the poverty prevailing in the region and by personal tragedy as he lost his mother when he was not yet five years old.

A few years later, following the devastation of the First World War and 123 years of partition, Poland was once again added to the map of Europe as a sovereign state. Findysz grew up in the shadow of the experience of war, whose consequences also affected his native region. In 1927, after completing his secondary education, he decided to pursue the priesthood and entered the Major Seminary in Przemyśl. There began a journey on which he would heroically live out the words of St Paul that nothing “can separate us from the love of God.”

A priest among the wounds and ruins of war

After his priestly ordination and ministry in several parishes — including in Borysław and Drohobych, in what is now Ukraine, since part of the former Diocese of Przemyśl lies today beyond Poland’s eastern border — he was assigned to Nowy Żmigród. He could not have imagined then that the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul, where he served as parish priest, would one day become a shrine dedicated to him.

The multicultural and multi-faith region where he served was a meeting place of different traditions and cultures. The young priest became known for his extraordinary warmth and concern for all the inhabitants, as well as for his strictness, especially towards himself.

His parishioners carried fresh and deep wounds from the Second World War. The German authorities forcibly displaced all the inhabitants of the town, including Father Findysz, and the city of Nowy Żmigród was almost completely destroyed. After returning on January 23, 1945, the priest devoted himself to rebuilding parish life and helping residents affected by the war. Soon he would face another threat: repression by the communist authorities and their systematic campaign of atheisation.

The last photograph of Father Findysz, his health devastated by imprisonment and the lack of medical care

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“He was born to become a priest”

“During those very difficult times, when this land was under occupation,” recalled one of his friends, Mieczysław Brożyna, “he tried to give us hope, saying that all this would pass, and that times would come when people would look at life differently. He knew how to empathise with others and comfort them. He helped the poor and the sick.”

Father Findysz risked his life to help people who were persecuted or in danger of death, regardless of their nationality or religion, including Jews whom he helped escape to Hungary. “He wanted to lead the whole parish to God. He felt responsible for every person and every family. He helped people himself and asked others to help those in need. I think he was born to become a priest.”

An apostle of unity among the people

Father Findysz understood that the difficult post-war years could deepen divisions in a nation that had suffered greatly from war and occupation. In addition to providing practical assistance to his parishioners, he became an advocate of national unity and a preacher of unwavering hope in every aspect of life. He did so in opposition to the policies of the post-war communist state, which sought to remove God from public life and subjected the Catholic Church and its priests to repression.

He was popular among young people and respected by his parishioners. He soon became a thorn in the side of the communist authorities. As early as 1946, he was placed under surveillance by the Security Office (a secret political police force used by the regime to crush opposition and control the population). In 1952, the school authorities suspended him from teaching catechism at the local secondary school. Later, the authorities refused to grant him permission twice to stay in the border zone, preventing him from carrying out his pastoral ministry in part of the parish.

Yet the period of his most severe persecution coincided with the work of the Second Vatican Council.

The “Council Act of Goodness”

When Pope John XXIII, during the Council, called on the faithful to offer spiritual support through prayer and “works of goodness,” Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński responded by launching in Poland an initiative known as the “Council Act of Goodness.” It encouraged concrete acts of charity and prayer in Polish families and communities as a way of supporting the Council’s efforts to renew the moral life of the Church.

“The spirit of forgiveness, reconciliation and harmony, the pardoning of your grievances, whether real or imagined, a brotherly hand extended in friendship, a smile and a kindly look towards everyone — this is the best and most effective form of help for the unity of Christians,” the bishops wrote at the time. The Council Acts of Goodness became an important element of Poland’s pastoral programme connected with the Council and were a phenomenon on a scale rarely seen in the universal Church.

Father Findysz also joined this initiative, encouraging his parishioners to take part. After undergoing thyroid surgery and experiencing problems with his voice, he wrote more than one hundred letters to parishioners as a personal and discreet expression of concern for them. In the letters, he encouraged them, among other things, to nurture their sacramental life, break free from addictions, and seek reconciliation and an end to conflicts within families and between neighbours.

To those living in relationships that were not sacramental marriages, he recalled the need to reconcile themselves with God and regularise their situation within the Church, offering to help them enter into a sacramental marriage. Some recipients felt offended by these appeals and filed complaints with the communist authorities. These complaints were subsequently used as the basis for accusing Father Findysz of forcing citizens to engage in religious practices and rites, leading to proceedings against him and a show trial.

Imprisoned for his faith

In 1963, he was arrested and imprisoned in the castle prison in Rzeszów. The humiliation and physical and psychological abuse he suffered in prison were a telling sign of the authorities’ hatred towards him. He was accused, among other things, of violating the Constitution and people’s consciences and of forcing people to profess the Catholic faith. In a show trial, he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

He served the first two months of his sentence in Rzeszów. On January 25, 1964, he was transferred to the Central Prison on Montelupich Street in Kraków. Although it was confirmed at the time that he was suffering from cancer and urgently needed treatment, the prison and judicial authorities denied him proper medical care and prevented him from undergoing a previously scheduled operation for oesophageal cancer, despite interventions by diocesan authorities and his lawyer.

As a result, compounded by physical and psychological abuse, his health deteriorated rapidly. On February 29, 1964, he was conditionally released in a state of extreme exhaustion. He returned to Nowy Żmigród and died on August 21, 1964, regarded as a man of holiness. He was beatified in Warsaw on June 19, 2005.

Crowds of faithful at Father Findysz’s funeral