Salesian Was Persecuted by Both Nazis and Communists
(ANS -
Vatican City – May 22) - On May 19, Pope
Francis, received Cardinal Angelo Amato, SDB, prefect of the
Congregation for Saints’ Causes, in audience and authorized the Congregation to promulgate the
decree concerning the heroic virtues of the Servant of God August Joseph Hlond
of the Salesian Society.
August, the second of 11 children, was born on July 5, 1881, in Brzeczkowice in Upper Silesia, Poland. His father was a railway worker. Having received a simple but strong faith from his parents, he entered the Salesian Society at a very young age and did his novitiate in Italy at Foglizzo Canavese. After his religious profession, he was sent to Rome and studied at the Gregorian University. Ordained on September 23, 1905, he became director of various Salesian houses in Poland and Vienna. He took care of the young, especially the poor, with the charism of Don Bosco. He lived among the people, sharing the joys and sufferings of the simplest persons.
Fr. Hlond was the first provincial of the
German-Hungarian Province. In Vienna he impressed on Abp. Achille Ratti, who,
on becoming Pope Pius XI, appointed him apostolic administrator of Upper Silesia,
a responsibility requiring exceptional tact. From Fr. Hlond’s mediation between
the German and Polish inhabitants, the diocese of Katowice was born in 1925, of
which he became bishop on December 14, 1925.
On June 24, 1926, Pope Pius promoted him to archbishop
of Gniezno and Poznan and primate of Poland. The Pope made him a cardinal on June
20, 1927, the second in the Salesians’ history. In 1932 he founded the Society
of Christ for Polish Emigrants, whose purpose was to assist the many Poles who
left their country.
In 1936, as primate he led the first synod of the
Polish bishops. He became a great promoter of Catholic Action. He was the first
shepherd in Poland, and possibly worldwide, to establish a Youth Festival.
In March 1939, he
participated in the conclave that elected Pius XII. On September 1 of the same
year, Germany invaded Poland, igniting World War II. At the request of the
Polish government, in agreement with the apostolic nuncio, Cardinal Hlond went
to Rome to inform the Holy Father of the tragic situation in Poland; unable to
return, he took refuge in Lourdes, whence he raised his voice against the Nazis’
violations of human rights and religious freedom including the persecution of
Jews in Poland.
After the fall of France, the Gestapo arrested him
and interned him in Lorraine. In September 1944, he was deported by the Nazis
to Westphalia in Germany. Released in 1945 by the Allies, he returned to Poland in July, finding there a Communist government installed. In 1946, while
maintaining episcopal headquarters of Gniezno, he was appointed archbishop of
Warsaw by Pius XII.
He courageously defended the Polish people from the
oppressive Marxist regime and was subject to several attacks from which he
escaped unscathed.
He died of pneumonia in Warsaw on October 22, 1948, at the age of 67 the rosary in
his hands. The Venerable Cardinal Stefan Wyszynski, his successor, called him a
pastor “with his gaze cast to the future.”
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Cardinal Hlond's tomb in Warsaw's cathedral
features the Salesian motto, "Give me souls and take away the rest."
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