Hanna Chrzanowska

After the war, Hanna Chrzanowska studied home care in the United States in 1946. In 1957, she directed the School of Psychiatric Nursing in Kobierzyn, but her religious attitude displeased the communist authorities, who closed the school, forcing her into retirement in 1958. She then founded parish nursing (chaplaincy for the sick) in the Archdiocese of Krakow. She structured a comprehensive assistance network with volunteers, doctors, and students to care for the chronically ill and disabled at home, also organizing spiritual retreats to break their isolation.

Raised in an environment far from religious practice, Hanna Chrzanowska experienced a profound spiritual conversion before the Second World War, living her profession as a divine vocation. In 1956, she became a Benedictine oblate of the Tyniec Abbey. Her work unfolded in close collaboration with Karol Wojtyła (the future Pope John Paul II), then a priest and later Archbishop of Krakow, who accompanied her in her ministry to the sick. This collaboration would influence Karol Wojtyła's theology of suffering and the institution of the World Day of the Sick. Afflicted with cancer starting in 1966, she died on April 29, 1973, in Krakow. Her funeral was presided over by Cardinal Wojtyła.

The cause for the beatification of Hanna Chrzanowska began in 1998 at the request of the Polish Catholic Association of Nurses and Midwives. Recognized as venerable by Pope Francis on September 30, 2015, her remains were transferred in 2016 to the Church of St. Nicholas in Krakow. Following the recognition of a miracle of unexplained healing on July 7, 2017, she was beatified on April 28, 2018, at the Sanctuary of Divine Mercy in Krakow-Łagiewniki by Cardinal Angelo Amato, representing Pope Francis, becoming the first lay registered nurse to be beatified.

Hanna Chrzanowska's spirituality is based on the identification of the caregiver with the Good Samaritan and the sick person with the suffering Christ. She insists on the union of technical care and spiritual solicitude, writing an 'Examination of Conscience for the Nurse'. She is considered today in Poland as the pioneer of modern palliative care and home hospices, inspiring Catholic healthcare professionals throughout the world.