Władysław Findysz

Władysław Findysz was born on 13 December 1907 in Krościenko Niżne, near Krosno in Galicia, then a province of Austria-Hungary and today in southeastern Poland. He grew up in a devout peasant family and completed his secondary studies at the gymnasium in Jasło before entering the diocesan seminary in Przemyśl. He was ordained to the priesthood on 19 June 1932 for the Diocese of Przemyśl. His first years of ministry were spent as a curate in several parishes, among them Borysław and Drohobycz in the eastern part of the diocese (territory that later became part of the Soviet Union and is now in Ukraine), as well as Strzyżów and Jasło.

In October 1941 he was named pastor of the parish of Nowy Żmigród, where he remained for the rest of his life. The appointment came during the German occupation of Poland. In that period he worked to sustain parish life under wartime conditions and to assist people uprooted by the conflict, including families expelled from western Poland. After 1945 the communist government of Poland imposed severe restrictions on the Catholic Church. Findysz continued ordinary pastoral work, declined to cooperate with the security police, and was placed under surveillance as a priest regarded as uncooperative with the regime.

Inspired by the Second Vatican Council, then in session, he began in 1963 a pastoral campaign he called the Conciliar Work of Charity (Soborowe Dzieło Miłosierdzia). He sent personal letters to parishioners who no longer practiced the faith, urging them to return to the sacraments and to regular Catholic life. State authorities treated this correspondence as an illegal attempt to coerce citizens in religious matters. Although already seriously ill with cancer, Findysz was arrested on 25 November 1963. After a trial in Rzeszów he was sentenced to two and a half years in prison.

He was held in conditions that worsened his disease and was denied the medical care his condition required. Released in late February 1964 on health grounds, he returned to Nowy Żmigród and died there on 21 August 1964. Church authorities later determined that his death had been caused by the communist regime’s hatred of the faith, and he was therefore recognized as a martyr. Pope Benedict XVI approved his beatification, which was celebrated in Warsaw on 19 June 2005 by Cardinal Józef Glemp acting as papal legate—the first beatification of Benedict’s pontificate. Findysz is buried in the parish church of Saints Peter and Paul in Nowy Żmigród; his feast is observed on 21 August.