Pope Leo XIV on Friday approved the beatification of 11 “martyr” priests killed by the Nazi or Communist regimes in Europe in the 1940s and 1950s, putting them close to sainthood.
They include Jan Swierc and eight other Polish Salesian priests between 1941 and 1942 “out of hatred for the faith” in Nazi camps at Auschwitz and Dachau, a Vatican statement said.
The Holy See’s official media, Vatican News, named the others as Ignacy Antonowicz, Ignacy Dobiasz, Karol Golda, Franciszek Harazim, Ludwik Mroczek, Wlodzimierz Szembek, Kazimierz Wojciechowski and Franciszek Miska.
“Uninvolved in the political tensions of the time, they were arrested simply because they were Catholic priests,” it said.
“The special fury reserved for the Polish clergy, who were insulted and persecuted, can be seen in the actions taken against them.”
In the concentration camps, they were mocked, tortured and killed or lost their lives due to the conditions of their imprisonment, it said.
The pope also declared as martyrs Jan Bula and Vaclav Drbola, diocesian priests killed between 1951 and 1952 in Jihlava, in the former Czechoslovakia.
“Because of their pastoral zeal, both were considered dangerous by the communist regime that had been established in Czechoslovakia in 1948 and which had begun open persecution against the Church,” Vatican News said.
Bula, accused of inspiring a 1951 attack in which several communist officials had been killed, sentenced to death and hanged.
Drbola was accused of involvement in the same attack, even though he — like Bula — had been in jail at the time, and executed.
Both men were tortured into signing false confessions of guilt, according to Vatican News.
In the Catholic Church, there are three steps to sainthood — becoming “venerable”, then “blessed”, then a “saint”.
To become venerable, the pope must recognise the person lived a heroically virtuous life.
To become blessed, a process known as beatification, the Church must then recognise a miracle attributed to the person’s intervention.
If they are declared a martyr they can be beatified without a miracle.
However, one more miracle is required for all blesseds to become saints, a process known as canonisation.
