KRAKOW, Poland (LifeSiteNews) – Father Michał Rapacz, a Polish Catholic priest martyred by the Russian Communists in 1946, was beatified on Saturday at the Divine Mercy Shrine.
The beatification followed Pope Francis’ decree in January recognizing that the Polish priest was killed “in hatred of the faith.” The zealous 41-year-old priest was shot twice by the Communists in a forest near his parish church in Ploki, Poland, on the night of May 11/12, 1946.
The beatification took place at the Divine Mercy Shrine of Krakow-Łagiewniki, where Saint Faustina Kowalska is buried. The shrine was consecrated by Saint John Paul II on August 17, 2002.
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Born September 14, 1904, in Tenczyn, Poland, Rapacz entered the Krakow seminary in 1926 and was ordained a priest in 1931. His work as a priest quickly drew the attention of the Communist authorities, who made several death threats before carrying through with their stated intentions.
Detailing the heroic life and death of the priest in a letter for Lent in February, Archbishop Marek Jędraszewski, Metropolitan of Krakow, wrote of Fr. Rapacz, “In 1937, he returned to Płoki, where he became parish administrator. The Second World War found him there, during which he supported the local population, including Polish partisans. When the communists took over the Polish government in 1945, Fr. Rapacz, due to his pastoral zeal, soon became the object of their harassment.”
The archbishop continued, “Warned of the imminent danger and urged to leave Płoki, he said during one of his sermons: +Though I should fall dead, I will not cease to preach this Gospel and I will not renounce my own cross+. On the night of 11/12 May 1946, a communist militia raided the rectory. A death sentence was read out to Fr. Rapacz and then he was led outside. At the time, he repeated only one sentence: +Thy will be done, Lord+. Dragged on a rope around the church and severely beaten, he was then forcibly taken to a forest about 1 km away and shot there.”
“He remained in the memory of his parishioners as a priest who went to the church every night to pray for a long time in front of the Blessed Sacrament for the salvation of the people entrusted to him,” the Metropolitan of Krakow pointed out,” Jędraszewski concluded.
Polish news outlet Gazeta Krakowska wrote of the priest-martyr: “He was a zealous priest, courageously demanding the truth. He helped materially and spiritually the poor, the suffering, those who were affected by the Nazi occupation. After the end of World War II, the communists did not like his work — it was mainly about working with young people who liked him and to whom he devoted a lot of time. Also, the courageous demand for the place of God and the Church in social life was not liked.”
The outlet recounts that after his martyrdom, “The tortured body of Father Rapacz was found on Sunday morning. The murdered parish priest was considered a martyr for the faith from the beginning. According to legends, people dipped handkerchiefs in his blood, which was left at the scene of the crime, and took them home as relics.”
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