"Positio super martyrio" of Servants of God John Swierc and 8 Companions Submitted at the Vatican
(ANS - Vatican City
– July 28, 2022) – On July 21, the Positio super martyrio of the
Servants of God John Swierc and 8 Companions, priests of the Society of St.
Francis de Sales, was consigned to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints at
the Vatican.
The Positio had Fr. Szczepan Tadeusz Praskiewicz, OCD, as the rapporteur, Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni as the postulator, and Dr. Mariafrancesca Oggianu as the collaborator. Structural elements of the Positio – which presents in an articulate and thorough manner the entire documentary and testifying apparatus concerning the martyrdom of the Servants of God – are: a brief presentation by the rapporteur; the “Informatio super martyrio,” that is, the theological part in which the material and formal martyrdom of the Servants of God is demonstrated; two “Summaries” with the testifying and documentary evidence; the last sections and iconographic apparatus.
After delivery, the
Positio will be examined by the historical consultors of the dicastery, then by
the theologians. Then it will be studied by the cardinals and bishops of the dicastery;
these articulated stages of study and evaluation will allow the Supreme
Pontiff, in case of a positive outcome, to declare Fr. John Swierc and 8
Companions martyrs and thus proceed to their beatification.
These 9 Polish
Salesian priests belong to the number of presumed martyrs of Nazism. Besides
Fr. Jan Świerc they include Fr. Ignatius Antonowicz, Fr. Charles Golda, Fr. Wlodzimierz
Szembek, Fr. Francis Harazim, Fr. Louis Mroczek, Fr. Ignatius Dobiasz, Fr.
Kazimierz Wojciechowski, and Fr. Francis Miska. As priests, all these Servants
of God were engaged in various pastoral and governmental activities and
teaching in Poland. They were completely uninvolved with respect to the
political tensions that agitated Poland during the wartime occupation.
Nevertheless, they were arrested and martyred in hatred for the faith for
the very fact of being Catholic priests.
On June 27, 1941,
in the Auschwitz concentration camp, Fr. John Swierc, Fr. Ignatius Dobiasz, Fr.
Francis Harazim, and Fr. Kazimierz Wojciechowski died at the hands of the SS.
The latter two Servants of God, specifically, were killed, alongside each
other, at the same time. Servant of God Fr. Ignatius Antonowicz died three
weeks later, on July 21, 1941, as a result of the mistreatment he suffered on
that same June 27. On Jan. 5, 1942, Servant of God Fr. Louis Mroczek also died
in the Auschwitz as a result of the torture he underwent and the numerous
surgeries that followed. A few months later, on May 14, 1942, Fr. Charles Golda
was shot in the same camp, accused of administering the sacrament of confession
to two German soldiers for the sole purpose of deceitfully extorting important
secrets of the Nazi regime. Servant of God Włodzimierz Szembek also died in the
Auschwitz camp on September 7, 1942: in his case, too, it was mistreatment that
caused his death. Those 8 Servants of God belonged to the Salesians’ Krakow Province.
Servant of God Fr. Francis Miska, however, who belonged to the Salesians’ Pila Province,
died in the Dachau concentration camp (in Germany) on May 30, 1942, as a result
of mistreatment and torture.
The reputation of
sanctity and martyrdom of the Servants of God Fr. John Swierc and 8 Companions,
although hindered during the Communist period, spread as early as their death
and is still alive today. They were considered exemplary priests, devoted to pastoral
work and works of charity, affable, always available, in everything interested
in giving glory only to God, for whose sake they were faithful even to the
shedding of blood.
[Fr. Swierc and
several of the others were the parish priests of St. Stanilaus Kostka Church in
Krakow, and thus were the spiritual guides of university student Karol Wojtyla,
who joined the parish when he came to Krakow to study.]
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