Canonization process stopped for Shenandoah-native Father Ciszek
KAYLEE LINDENMUTH / SHENANDOAH SENTINEL FILE
SHENANDOAH – After several decades of work, the canonization process for a Shenandoah native has stopped.
Father Walter Ciszek had been under consideration for canonization for decades. In 2012, the Vatican gave formal approval for the canonization process to begin after well over a decade of work at the Diocesean level.
That included gathering testimony of 45 witnesses, Ciszek’s published and unpublished works, and over 4,000 documents from Jesuit archives, Russian archives, and more. It wasn’t enough.
In a letter shared with the Walter Ciszek Prayer League, Monsignor Ronald Bocian of Shenandoah’s Divine Mercy Parish said “the formal canonization process has been stopped.”
“The Diocese has been informed that the documentation relating to his Cause does not support advancing his Cause for Beatification or Sainthood,” Bocian wrote. “The development comes after years of careful study and discernment at the level of the Holy See, which bears the responsibility of evaluating each Cause with thoroughness, integrity, and fidelity to the Church’s norms.”
“While this news may understandably bring disappointment to many who have been inspired by Father Ciszek’s example of heroic faith and have prayed for his Cause, it does not diminish the enduring spiritual value of his life, witness, and legacy,” he continued.
Born in Shenandoah in 1904, Ciszek, a Jesuit, volunteered in Poland in the 1930’s as a young priest until the outbreak of World War II when he fled into the Soviet Union where he was captured and imprisoned, accused of being a spy.
He was released as part of a prisoner swap in the 1960’s negotiated by President John F. Kennedy.
Bocian says the Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League will become the Father Walter Ciszek Society “and remain committed to honoring his memory, sharing his message, and encouraging devotion to the profound spiritual insights he left to the church.”
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