Salesian Martyr Fr. Titus Zeman Beatified
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| Blessed Titus Zeman’s remains are presented in a
specially designed casket at the beatification Mass. (ANS) |
Cardinal
Angelo Amato, SDB, prefect of the Congregation for Saints’ Causes, beatified
Salesian Fr. Titus Zeman, martyr, on Saturday, September 30, in Bratislava,
Slovakia.
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| Fr. Zeman in his youth |
Fr. Zeman had been arrested in 1951 by the
Communist authorities of what was then Czechoslovakia, charged as a traitor and
a Vatican spy for smuggling young Salesians out of the country, and sentenced
in 1952 to prison. He was paroled after 12 years, his health broken. His death
on January 8, 1969, due to heart failure, was a direct result of the torture he
had experienced during interrogation and in prison.
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| Fr. Zeman’s prison “mug shots.” (Salesians of
Don Bosco) |
Fr.
Zeman’s cause as a martyr was initiated in Bratislava in 2010, and in 2016 the
CSC declared he was a martyr who had suffered “in hatred of the faith.” Pope
Francis approved the decree of beatification earlier this year.
Fr.
Zeman became the second Salesian beatified as a martyr at the hands of the
Communist regimes of Eastern Europe. In 2013 Bro. Stephen Sandor was beatified
in Budapest; he had been hanged in 1953 by the Hungarian government for the “crime”
of youth ministry. A third potential martyr’s cause was just initiated (October
6) in Poznan, Poland, that of Archbishop Anthony Baraniak, SDB (1904-1977),
archbishop of Poznan (1957-1977), described by the current archbishop as a “martyr of the Communist system, a man persecuted and tortured in prison
by Stalin’s investigators.”
National celebration of Slovak martyr
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Poster promoting the beatification program.
(ANS)
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Blessed
Titus’s beatification ceremony was attended by about 25,000 people, including
Slovak Cardinal Jozef Tomko, 25 bishops and the apostolic nuncio, about 500
priests, 200 seminarians, the Rector Major (Fr. Angel Fernandez Artime), the
postulator general (Fr. Pierluigi Cameroni), two of Fr. Zeman’s sisters, and
other relatives. One of the priests present was Fr. Al Pestun, 89, of the San
Francisco Province, parochial vicar of Corpus Christi Parish in San Francisco. He
is the last surviving Salesian whom Fr. Zeman attempted to lead from
Czechoslovakia to Austria and on to Turin; the attempt was unsuccessful, but
seminarian Bro. Pestun escaped later.
Cardinal
Amato preached that “to donate his life for his brothers was Blessed Titus
Zeman’s ideal. He was arrested because he helped seminarians and priests to
flee the country so as to live their apostolic ideal. His imprisonment was
transformed into a sacrifice of redemption for others."
On
the following day, October 1, there was a celebration in Vajnory, the section
of Bratislava where Blessed Titus was born on January 4, 1915, and where he
died. Fr. Angel Fernandez, the Salesian Rector Major, preached the homily at this celebration, focusing on
the timeliness of Fr. Zeman’s witness in view of the upcoming synod of bishops
on “Young people, faith, and vocational discernment.” His relics were placed at
a side altar of the parish church where he had been baptized and confirmed and
celebrated his first Mass in 1940.
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| The reliquary-casket with Fr. Zeman’s remains,
following its blessing. (ANS) |
The
new blessed’s relics were encased in a small, coffin-like casket designed by
two Slovak artists, Andrei Botek and Marian Kralik. The façade of the casket
includes two sculpted reliefs showing Fr. Zeman leading a clandestine escape
party and the moment of his capture.
Blessed
Titus’s memorial will be observed on January 8, his dies natalis (“heavenly birthday”).
Following his Salesian vocation
As early as age ten, Titus Zeman wanted to
become a priest. He studied with the Salesians at Sastin and made his
profession on August 6, 1932. He began theological at the Gregorian University in
Rome and finished in Chieri. He was ordained in Turin on June 23, 1940, and
returned to Slovakia, which had declared independence and allied itself with
Germany during World War II. Nevertheless, he was able to exercise his Salesian
ministry first at the youth center in Bratislava, then as a parish priest, and
finally as a chemistry and biology teacher in Trnava.
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| The website set up by the Slovak Salesians to
promote information about Blessed Titus. (ANS) |
Reunited
after the war, Czechoslovakia suffered a Communist coup in 1948 and became a
Stalinist satellite. In April 1950 the government ordered that all religious be
rounded up in the dead of night. Many of them were sent to concentration camps.
Fr. Zeman happened to be away from the Salesian house for Easter services and
so evaded the round-up. He decided to go underground to help his young
confreres who weren’t in camps to escape to Turin to complete their studies. He
led successful escape parties totaling more than 60 Salesians in August and
October 1950. A third group’s attempt to cross the Morava River into Austria
was foiled by a border guard, and most of the group, including Fr. Zeman, were
captured. (Bro. Pestun was one who got away.)
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| Some of the Salesians whom Fr. Zeman led to
freedom. (tituszeman.sk/) |
A
section of the Salesian Slovak webpage on Fr. Zeman called “Saved by Titus“
records the names and history of many of those whom he assisted to get away. Of
interest to New Rochelle Province Salesians is that one of them was Bro. Jozef
Hercog (sic).
Captured, tortured, killed slowly
Fr. Zeman faced the death penalty during
his trial but in February 1952 was sentenced instead to 25 years in prison.
With his health ruined by torture and harsh conditions, he was paroled to
Vajnory in March 1964, and during the “Prague Spring” of 1968 was finally given
permission to celebrate Mass again. He died of heart failure, however, on
January 8, 1969.
The entire country took up Fr. Zeman. In April
of this year a pilgrimage of 200 altar servers came to Sastin, where Blessed
Titus had once been an altar boy, to celebrate “Titus, one of us.” A hymn was
composed by Slovak poet Daniel Hevier in honor of the holy martyr. A
biography titled Beyond the River, Toward
Salvation: Titus Zeman, Martyr for Vocations, was published in both Slovak
and Italian versions. Festivals and conferences were held in Bratislava,
Trnava, and elsewhere, and TV and radio specials were aired. The Slovak bishops issued a pastoral letter
regarding him in September. As noted above, hundreds of clergy participated in
the beatification Mass, which was broadcast nationally. The Salesians organized
a masterful webpage with multiple language options: www.tituszeman.sk, which
includes an hour-long documentary film, I
Passed the Border (with English subtitles): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2HbvlZSgq4w.
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Altar servers who took part in a pilgrimage to
celebrate
the upcoming beatification of a former altar boy. (tituszeman.sk/) |
On May
30, Fr. Jozef Slivon of the postulator’s office concelebrated Pope Francis’s
Mass and then presented him with a relic of Fr. Zeman and a copy of the
just-published biography. The Holy Father kissed the relic and sent his
blessing to everyone involved. In his Angelus message on the day after the
beatification, he said: “He joins the long line of martyrs of the 20th century....
His testimony supports us in the most difficult moments of life and helps us
recognize, even in hardship, the presence of the Lord.”
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| Pope Francis reverences a relic of Blessed Titus
given to him at the Vatican. (L’Osservatore
Romano) |
The witness of Blessed Titus’s life and ministry
Fr.
Fernandez addressed a short letter to
the entire Salesian Family to mark the beatification, highlighting Fr. Zeman as
a fruit of Salesian sanctity, as a faithful Salesian totally in love with the
Church and the priesthood, and as a zealous apostle of vocations.
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| A young Titus Zeman (2nd from right) with
friends. (tituszeman.sk/) |
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| Young Fr. Zeman greeted by girls in traditional dress |
Many
people who knew Fr. Titus offered their testimony about
his character, dedication, and courage, even before the events that led to his
martyrdom. One of his students described him as “my spiritual father.” Another
calls him “simple-hearted, very funny, and a great sportsman.” He helped hide
Jews during World War II and hide nuns when the Red Army advanced through
Slovakia. A Salesian student of theology remarked on how he helped clean up
their school after the Russians left it full of excrement and stinking like a
sewer: “I saw there his great love and tenacity for his work. He was a true
Salesian who did everything in a humble way. It was clear he liked us, the
young students of theology, a lot. He saw us as the hope for the Salesian
Congregation in Slovakia.”
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| Procession of clergy entering the cemetery for
Fr. Zeman’s burial. (tituszeman.sk/) |
Fr.
Zeman’s “funeral was exceptionally touching … not only because of its outer
aspects (it was a true triumph of sympathy, wonder, and gratitude) but mainly
because such unity of emotion … is truly rare. There was not only a homily at
the Mass but also several speeches and a funeral oration. All of the speakers emphasized
the great qualities of the deceased: conscientiousness, strength of his spirit,
profound faith, strong will, transcendental devotion to God’s will, but mainly
absolute self-sacrifice for the priestly ideal and effort to save young
priestly vocations for the Church and the Salesian Society.”
Blessed Titus’s best known saying is
probably, “Even if I lose my life, I do not consider it a waste, knowing that
at least one of those whom I have saved has become a priest to take my place.”
At his funeral the Slovak provincial noted that more than 50 priests and
religious owed their vocations to him; his life was a kernel of wheat that fell
to the ground and produced abundant fruit. “If every priest who died in
Slovakia left such religious posterity, the funerals of Slovak priests would
mean not a decrease but an increase in the priestly ranks.”
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| Fr. Al Pestun (Salesians) |
