Servant of God Father Walter Joseph Ciszek

Born: November 4, 1904
Death: December 8, 1984
Cause for Canonization Opened: March 2012 (Formal Opening), Considered for Sainthood in 1990
Declared Servant of God: October 1990

Servant of God Fr. Walter Joseph Cizsek, SJ, born 1904 to Polish immigrants in Pennsylvania, was raised Catholic and joined the Jesuits at age 24. In 1929, he experienced “almost like a direct call from God,” when Pope Pius XI called seminarians to study at Collegium Russicum to prepare them for missionary work in Russia. Ordained in 1937, Fr. Ciszek entered Russian in 1939 after WWII broke out. He worked as an unskilled laborer with false identification papers until June 1941 when he was arrested and believed to be a “Vatican spy.” Held in solitary confinement for 4 years, he was eventually sentenced to 15 years of hard labor, 11 of which were in a Siberian labor camp. While imprisoned, he continued to hear confessions and say Mass. Freed from the camps in 1955, he was forced to live in the city of Norilsk, then Krasnoyarsk, and then Abakan — transferred each time by the KGB because he refused to stop his priestly ministry. In October 1963, President JFK negotiated Fr. Ciszek’s release. Upon his return, Fr. Ciszek gave lectures and provided spiritual counseling at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University, where he received an honorary doctorate in 1979. He wrote two books on his life: With God in Russia and He Leadeth Me.

Read his story of quiet holiness and service here. 

Resources:

• Prayers for the Cause of Canonization of Fr. Walter Ciszek
• Interviews: Listen to his life in his own words