Stefan Wyszyński

In March 1946, Pope Pius XII appointed him Bishop of Lublin. He chose as his episcopal motto Soli Deo ("To God alone"). Two years later, on November 12, 1948, following the death of Cardinal August Hlond, he was promoted to Metropolitan Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw, thus assuming the title of Primate of Poland. He was created a cardinal by Pius XII during the consistory of January 12, 1953. Faced with the establishment of a totalitarian communist regime subservient to the Soviet Union, Cardinal Wyszyński adopted an attitude of pragmatic firmness. In 1950, in order to preserve a minimal space for pastoral freedom for the Church, he signed an agreement with the communist government. However, faced with the authorities' repeated violations of this agreement and their desire to control the appointment of bishops, he drafted in May 1953, on behalf of the Polish episcopate, the famous memorandum Non possumus ("We cannot"). This resistance led to his arrest by the security police on September 25, 1953. He spent more than three years in detention and isolation in various monasteries across Poland. During this captivity, he wrote his famous Prison Notes and drafted the "Jasna Góra National Vows," which were pronounced on August 26, 1956, by a million pilgrims gathered at the Marian shrine of Częstochowa, before an empty throne symbolizing his absence. Released in October 1956 during the political thaw, he launched the "Great Novena" (1957-1965), a vast program of spiritual and moral renewal intended to prepare the Polish people for the celebration of the millennium of the baptism of Poland (966-1966). This historic pastoral program helped preserve the nation's Christian identity in the face of state atheism.

After his death on May 28, 1981, in Warsaw, Cardinal Wyszyński's reputation for holiness continued to grow in Poland and throughout the world. The diocesan process for his beatification was officially opened on May 29, 1989, in Warsaw, under the pontificate of Saint John Paul II. The voluminous files of the inquiry (the Positio) were transmitted to Rome, and on December 18, 2017, Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to publish the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues, thereby conferring upon him the title of Venerable. To pave the way for his beatification, the recognition of a miracle was required. On October 2, 2019, Pope Francis approved the decree authenticating a miraculous healing attributed to the intercession of the Venerable Stefan Wyszyński. This miracle concerns the scientifically inexplicable healing, which occurred in 1989, of a young Polish woman suffering from a fulminant thyroid cancer that had been deemed incurable by the medical profession.

Initially scheduled for June 7, 2020, the beatification ceremony had to be postponed due to health restrictions related to the Covid-19 pandemic. It was finally celebrated on September 12, 2021, at the Temple of Divine Providence in Warsaw. The celebration was presided over by Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, acting on behalf of Pope Francis. Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński was raised to the altars at the same time as Mother Elżbieta Róża Czacka, with whom he had collaborated closely during his life. Blessed Stefan Wyszyński is liturgically commemorated on May 28, the day of his birth into heaven.

The spirituality of Blessed Stefan Wyszyński is deeply Christocentric and Marian, summarized by his motto Soli Deo ("To God alone") and his total abandonment to the Virgin Mary, whom he venerated particularly under the image of Our Lady of Częstochowa. He considered Marian devotion not as mere popular piety, but as an essential theological and spiritual bulwark to preserve faith and human dignity in the face of totalitarian ideologies. Nicknamed the "Primate of the Millennium" by Saint John Paul II, Wyszyński played a decisive historical role in the history of the universal Church and of Poland. He was the mentor, protector, and close friend of Karol Wojtyła. During the 1978 conclave, it was he who encouraged the young cardinal from Krakow to accept his election to the See of Peter, telling him that he must lead the Church into the new millennium. An active Council Father, he participated in all sessions of the Second Vatican Council (1962-1965), working notably within the Secretariat extra ordinem and the presidency of the Council, and strongly defending the proclamation of Mary as "Mother of the Church" by Pope Paul VI. His legacy is also marked by his spirit of reconciliation, illustrated by the famous letter addressed in 1965 to the German bishops, containing the historic words of mutual forgiveness.