August Hlond

As Primate of Poland, Cardinal August Hlond was entrusted by the Holy See with the pastoral care of Poles in the diaspora, scattered across the world due to successive waves of emigration. To meet this immense spiritual and material challenge, he founded the Society of Christ for Polish Emigrants (Societas Christi pro Emigrantibus Polonis) on September 8, 1932, with the invaluable help of Father Ignacy Posadzy (himself declared Venerable in 2022). This congregation of priests and coadjutor brothers has the specific mission of accompanying Polish emigrants abroad, preserving their Catholic faith, and maintaining their spiritual bond with their homeland. Cardinal Hlond tasked Father Posadzy with structuring and directing this new work, which received the Decree of Praise (Decretum Laudis) from Rome in 1950. Concerned with extending this mission to women and families of emigrants, Cardinal Hlond's vision also inspired the foundation of a female branch, the Missionary Sisters of Christ the King for Polish Emigrants, which was officially established in 1958 by Father Posadzy. Today, the Society of Christ counts hundreds of priests working in many countries (notably in France, the United States, Canada, Brazil, and Germany), testifying to the prophetic vision and pastoral solicitude of its founder for migrants.

During the Second World War, after the invasion of Poland by Nazi Germany in 1939, Cardinal Hlond was forced into exile to continue defending the cause of his people. He took refuge first in Rome, then in France, at Lourdes and the Abbey of Hautecombe. It was there that he was arrested by the Gestapo on February 3, 1944. Interned successively in Paris, in Lorraine (Bar-le-Duc), and in Westphalia (Wiedenbrück), he categorically refused to collaborate with the Nazi regime or to endorse a puppet Polish government.

Liberated by Allied troops in April 1945, he returned to Poland in July of the same year. In 1946, he was appointed Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw. Facing the installation of the Communist regime supported by the Soviet Union, he firmly opposed state atheism and vigorously defended the freedom of the Church and the rights of the Polish nation through courageous pastoral letters.

Exhausted by these trials and incessant labor, he suffered an acute attack of appendicitis in October 1948. Operated on urgently, he developed serious pulmonary complications and died of bilateral pneumonia on October 22, 1948, in Warsaw, at the age of 67. His national funeral at St. John's Cathedral in Warsaw was a true apotheosis and a symbol of spiritual resistance for the Polish people.

The cause for the beatification and canonization of August Hlond was officially opened at the diocesan level in Warsaw on January 9, 1992, after obtaining the Nihil obstat from the Holy See on September 2, 1991. The diocesan inquiry was closed on October 21, 1996, and its validity was decreed by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints on March 6, 1998.

The Positio, a summary document on his life and virtues, was published in 2008. After a favorable examination by theological consultants and cardinals, Pope Francis authorized, on May 19, 2018, the promulgation of the decree recognizing the heroic nature of his virtues, thus conferring upon him the title of Venerable.

For his beatification to be pronounced, the official recognition of a miracle attributed to his intercession is required. The process is currently underway under the direction of the General Postulator of the Salesian Family, Father Pierluigi Cameroni.

The spirituality of the Venerable August Hlond was deeply marked by his Salesian identity, summarized by the motto of Saint John Bosco: "Da mihi animas, caetera tolle" (Give me souls, take away the rest). The two great pillars of his interior life were the Eucharist and devotion to the Virgin Mary, under the title of Mary Help of Christians.

He nurtured an absolute trust in Marian protection for the future of the Church and of Poland. He is the author of this famous spiritual intuition: "The victory, when it comes, will be a victory through Mary." This certainty deeply marked his successors, in particular Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński (the "Primate of the Millennium") and Pope Saint John Paul II, who both repeated and lived by this certainty of the victory of faith through the intercession of the Mother of God.

His legacy remains alive through the Society of Christ and the Missionary Sisters of Christ the King, who continue to serve Polish communities throughout the world, as well as in the collective memory of Poland as a pastor who was fearless in the face of the totalitarianisms of the 20th century.