Posted on 03/21/2012 7:04:58 AM PDT by marshmallow
A Catholic priest buried at the Jesuit Center at Wernersville cleared the first hurdle on the road to sainthood Monday, the Allentown Diocese announced.
The Rev. Walter J. Ciszek, a native of Shenandoah, Schuylkill County, attended St. Casimir’s Roman Catholic Church and school in Shenandoah before becoming a celebrated Jesuit priest who was held in a Russian prison for 15 years. He died in 1984.
Since 1989, after a mandatory five-year waiting period, his life has been under investigation by church officials both in the diocese and at the Vatican.
After a decade-long investigation, Ciszek’s life story in writings, sermons and actions was packed in wooden crates and shipped in 2006 to Rome for examination by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
There are still two steps, veneration and beatification, that must be completed before Ciszek is canonized a saint.
“This is exciting because it is one of our local boys making good,” said Monsignor Donald Bocian, president of the Father Walter J. Ciszek Prayer League and pastor of St. Casimir’s Church.
(Excerpt) Read more at patheos.com ...
Great man.
I read his “He Leadeth Me” some time ago.
“The body can be confined but nothing can destroy the deepest freedom of man, the freedom of the soul, and the freedom of mind and will.
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