Salesian Parishioner Beatified
(Catholic News Service)On May 1 Pope Benedict XVI beatified the most famous one-time parishioner of the Salesians, Karol Wojtyla from St. Stanislaus Kostka Parish in the Debniki neighborhood of Krakow, Poland.
Of course, the world knows him as Pope John Paul II—or John Paul the Great—and, now, Blessed Pope John Paul II.
In August 1938, 18-year-old Karol and his father moved from their native Wadowice into tiny quarters at 10 Tyniecka St. in Krakow, a three-minute walk around the corner from St. Stanislaus Church at 6 Konfederacka St., where Karol attended Mass daily at 6:00 a.m. Karol would be counted as a parishioner until 1944, well into his seminary years.
In August 1938, 18-year-old Karol and his father moved from their native Wadowice into tiny quarters at 10 Tyniecka St. in Krakow, a three-minute walk around the corner from St. Stanislaus Church at 6 Konfederacka St., where Karol attended Mass daily at 6:00 a.m. Karol would be counted as a parishioner until 1944, well into his seminary years.
St. Stanislaus Kostka Church in Debniki-Krakow
In Witness to Hope, his biography of John Paul, George Weigel says that St. Stanislaus “was a dynamic parish in which the Salesians placed great emphasis on youth work” (p. 59). The Pope himself wrote in Gift and Mystery, “I cannot fail to mention one particular place … from [which] I really received much during that period. The place was my parish, dedicated to Saint Stanislaus Kostka…. I believe that the presence of the Salesians played an important role in the formation of my vocation” (p. 23).
Karol Wojtyla (center) as a member of the militia, ca. 1938
The Pope spoke further of his vocation when he traveled to Turin in September 1988, in part to note the centennial of Don Bosco’s death earlier that year and to preside over the beatification of Laura Vicuña in the presence of 30,000 people, mostly youngsters, at Colle Don Bosco on Sept. 3. At the end of the beatification Mass, he thanked Providence for the gift of Don Bosco “for the benefit of youth and of the whole Catholic community,” and then added some very personal remarks: “I bring my own gratitude because I also lived for five or six years in a Salesian parish. And when I find myself here at Colle Don Bosco…, when I look at the imposing façade of this great church, it brings to my mind that of another church, not unlike this one from an architectural point of view: the parish church of St. Stanislaus Kostka in Krakow. There Don Bosco’s charism touched me through the Salesians, his spiritual sons. And so I too come here in pilgrimage with all of you to give thanks for the part played by St. John Bosco, his spiritual Family, and his charism in my life” (Acts of the General Council, n. 328, p. 19).
John Paul also notes the “special devotion there to Mary, Help of Christians” and “a change [that] took place in my understanding of devotion to the Mother of God” (G&M 28). Years later, the Salesian news service ANS reported, “It was precisely in front of the image of Mary Help of Christians venerated in the church in Debniki that young Karol came to the decision to devote himself entirely to the service of the Lord and his Church.” Salesian piety was one of several factors in the maturing Marian devotion of this most Marian of Supreme Pontiffs (cf. G&M
28-31).
Image of Mary Help of Christians before which Karol Wojtyla often prayedGermany launched World War II in Europe by invading Poland on Sept. 1, 1939. In the first year of the German occupation, writes Weigel, the Salesians “at the risk of their lives … tried to continue this [youth] apostolate…, conducting underground catechetical programs for elementary and high school students” (p. 59). Another biographer, Tad Szulc, singles out a pre-Easter retreat they organized in 1940 for the young people of the parish as a significant moment. “The retreat having proved successful,” he writes in Pope John Paul II, “the Salesians requested a priest who lectured at the Jagiellonian University to hold weekly theological encounters for twenty to thirty young people between the ages of sixteen and twenty-five, who had come to the original retreat” (p. 112). From these gatherings the Salesians came up with the idea of “the Living Rosary” to maintain a clandestine network among the youths to circumvent the Nazis’ wariness of even church organizations. The Pope wrote in Gift and Mystery that “the Salesian Fathers had courageously begun anew their work among youth in that difficult period” (p. 23).
Karol’s experience of Salesian pastoral care for the young—less than three years—must have made a profound impression upon him, not only in terms of his vocation and his Marian devotion, as he has testified, but also in his interest in young people, so evident throughout his own priestly, episcopal, and papal ministry. Writing to the Salesians’ 25th General Chapter on Feb. 22, 2002, Pope John Paul remarked: “Your life, my dear sons, is lived out among the boys as Don Bosco wanted it to be. You are happy among them, and they enjoy your friendly presence. Yours are ‘houses’ in which they feel at ease. Isn’t this the distinguishing feature of your apostolate in every part of the world?” (Acts of GC25, n. 145). Surely the Holy Father was speaking from personal experience. If Fr. Wojtyla the philosophy professor, Abp. Wojtyla of Krakow, and Pope John Paul II “connected” with the young and inspired so many of them to deepen their faith in Jesus Christ and even to pursue religious or priestly vocations, we may attribute that in good part to the Salesians of Debniki.
Statue of John Paul II in the chapel of Mary Help of Christians in the parish church of DebnikiOne participant in the youth gatherings following that Lenten retreat of 1940, by no means one of the younger ones, was a 39-year-old tailor named Jan Tyranowski. He offered to take charge of the Living Rosary, and the Salesians, recognizing “his gifts of good sense, piety, and apostolic zeal” (ANS), entrusted the pastoral care of the young men and women to him. This unpretentious and devout man was steeped in the spirituality of the Carmelite mystics, especially St. John of the Cross and St. Teresa of Avila.
When the Gestapo arrested Fr. Jan Swierc, St. Stanislaus Kostka’s pastor, and 11 other Salesians from the parish and the Salesian seminary on Tyniecka St. on May 23, 1941, the parish was left with only one elderly priest and the provincial, Fr. Adam Cieslar. Within 12 months Fr. Swierc and 7 others had been killed at Auschwitz. One, Fr. Joseph Kowalski, is among 108 Polish martyrs of the Nazis beatified in 1999, including 5 young leaders of the Salesian youth center in Poznan—evidence of just how dangerous were youth gatherings during the occupation, and, for that matter, the underground seminary program that Abp. Sapieha of Krakow organized in the fall of 1942 and in which Karol enrolled (cf. G&M 12-13). The cause of Fr. Swierc and 8 other Salesians as martyrs is under investigation.
Fr. Jan Swierc
During his last visit to Poland, John Paul II stopped in front of St. Stanislaus Church on August 17, 2002, and declared: “I always remember those Salesians who were taken away from this parish to the concentration camp.... I also remember Mr. Jan Tyranowski’s Living Rosary...” (ANS).
Tyranowski’s pastoral work thus became the more critical and more delicate. “Jan Tyranowski did not limit himself to the organizational aspects [of the youth network] alone; he also concerned himself with the spiritual formation of the young people whom he met” (G&M 24). Many of the Living Rosary Group eventually became priests or religious. John Paul speaks of him as a special “person from whom I received much during that period” (G&M 23); from this spiritual mentor Karol “learned the basic methods of self-formation which would later be confirmed and developed in the seminary program. Tyranowski…helped me to read the works of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, something uncommon for a person my age” (G&M 24).
Tyranowski’s pastoral work thus became the more critical and more delicate. “Jan Tyranowski did not limit himself to the organizational aspects [of the youth network] alone; he also concerned himself with the spiritual formation of the young people whom he met” (G&M 24). Many of the Living Rosary Group eventually became priests or religious. John Paul speaks of him as a special “person from whom I received much during that period” (G&M 23); from this spiritual mentor Karol “learned the basic methods of self-formation which would later be confirmed and developed in the seminary program. Tyranowski…helped me to read the works of Saint John of the Cross and Saint Teresa of Avila, something uncommon for a person my age” (G&M 24).
After his ordination on Nov. 1, 1946, Fr. Wojtyla returned to St. Stanislaus on Nov. 3 to celebrate one of his “first Masses” as a priest, “with a beaming Jan Tyranowski present” (Szulc, p. 133).
Tomb of Jan Tyranowski
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