Buddhist Catholic Contemplative Evangelical General Christian Hindu Jewish Latter-day Saint Muslim New Visions Progressive Christian

Beliefs

Topics

Columnists

Resource Library

Research Tools

Video

Podcasts

Thought Readers

Faith In Media Tracker

Newsletters

Ad-Free & Subscriber Log-In Subscription Support

Follow Patheos

Home
Catholic
Politics and Religion
Vatican Ends Cause for Canonization of Soviet Gulag Priest

Vatican Ends Cause for Canonization of Soviet Gulag Priest

Last updated on: May 8, 2026 at 8:15 pm by Rebecca Hamilton

Vatican Ends Cause for Canonization of Soviet Gulag Priest 2026-05-08T20:15:25-06:00 Rebecca Hamilton

LOGO Patheos Explore the world's faith through different perspectives on religion and spirituality! Patheos has the views of the prevalent religions and spiritualities of the world.

Soviet Gulag. Source: Wikimedia Commons

The Vatican has announced that it is closing the canonization cause for Fr Walter Ciszek. If you don’t know about Fr Ciszek, I encourage you to read his book, With God in Russia.

As for the cause of his canonization, I don’t trouble myself about the inner workings of the Vatican concerning things like beatifying potential saints. I know that it can take hundreds of years for a saint to finally be canonized.

St Thomas More is an example. He was convicted of High Treason and subsequently beheaded for refusing to swear allegiance to the King as the Supreme Leader of the English church in 1535. He was not beatified until 1886 and then there was another long pause to 1935 before he was canonized and recognized as a martyr.

So, I assume that just because the Vatican has set aside the cause of canonization for someone, that is not necessarily the end of the matter. My reaction to this kind of thing is simply that, in time, God’s will, whatever that will may be, will be done.

In the meantime, we still have the life and witness of Father Ciszek to educate and inspire us. We have his books to teach us what faith and personal courage in action look like under totalitarian regimes.

Father Ciszek was born in Pennsylvania, in 1904. He had a rough and tumble youth as a member of violent street gangs. No one would have thought that young Walter Ciszek might be the subject of a cause of canonization. In fact, when he suddenly announced that he was called to the priesthood, his friends, family and everyone who knew him were astonished.

I doubt if any of the people who knew him thought he would make it as a priest. But God had use for a rough and tumble man like Walter Ciszek. He wasn’t calling him to lead a cushy upper class parish.

Ciszek entered the Jesuits in 1928. The pope made an appeal for priests who were willing to go to Russia as missionaries. One year later, Walter Ciszek volunteered. He was sent to Rome to study Russian, theology and the Greek Orthodox liturgy. In 1937, Ciszek was ordained a priest in the Russian Rite in Rome and sent to a Jesuit mission in Eastern Poland.

Russia was a closed society in 1937, and priests, in particular, were not welcome there.

When Nazi Germany attacked Poland in 1939, the Nazis forced Ciszek to close his mission. He realized that he would be able to get into Russia by joining the streams of refugees fleeing the Nazis.

He received permission from his superior to do this, and, along with two other Jesuits, entered Russia. He ended up in a logging camp in the Urals where he performed hard labor and discreetly ministered to the other loggers.

He was arrested in 1941 under the false accusation that he was a Nazi spy. He ultimately signed a “confession” under severe torture and was sentenced to 15 years in a Gulag.

After he served his 15 years, he was forced to remain in Russia. During all this time, he ministered as a priest to other prisoners, and after the Gulag, to the Russians around him.

This ministry was perilous, dangerous work. But he successfully converted people, heard confessions, baptized and said Mass; all under the most repressive and dangerous conditions possible.

In all that time, he had never been allowed to write his family in the United States. His family and the Jesuits both assumed that Fr Walter Csizek was dead.

When he was finally allowed to send a letter home and his sisters learned their brother was alive, they swung into action, trying to bring their brother home. Finally, in 1963, President John F Kennedy arranged a trade of two Soviet spys for Fr Ciszek.

Fr Ciszek had not spoken English during his captivity, and he had difficulty with it once he got home. The Jesuits assigned a priest to interview Fr Ciszek and write a book about his years of captivity.

If you haven’t read With God in Russia, I encourage you to do so. It’s not a feel-good, ponies and rainbows kind of book. It’s more sobering than that.

Walter Ciszek did God’s work in Russia. He never wavered from his faith. But the darkness of a totalitarian state doesn’t let much light shine through.

He suffered enormously. And the people of Russia suffered enormously. He didn’t triumph in the sense of overturning that evil. He didn’t start a movement, or change the course of history. The state rolled on and every time the wheel of state turned, it crushed its citizens deeper into the mire.

What Fr Ciszek accomplished was personal; one on one. He secretly heard whispered confessions while marching in line. He said Mass in secret.

When he was released from the Gulag, he baptized the babies of people who’d never been inside a church or heard a homily. He said mass inside his hut and ministered to the dying in secret.

He was repeatedly disciplined for this. It is likely that if President Kennedy had not gotten him free, he would have ended up back in the Gulag.

His story is not the tale of how one man can cause historic change. It is, rather, the story of how God can work through one, tough and faithful priest to give people the gift of God’s love in even the most difficult situations.

Fr Ciszek’s story has a number of messages, including just how evil totalitarian dictatorships — it doesn’t matter whether they are fascist or communist — truly are. Any form of government that denies the unalienable worth of individual human beings is anti-Christ.

That is one message in Walter Ciszek’s story, and it’s easy to see. The other message, the most important one, runs parallel to it.

God didn’t use Fr Ciszek to overturn the horrors of totalitarian Communist Russia. He used him to hear a confession from another prisoner while they marched to their day of slave labor. He used him to say mass in secret to men who were mostly doomed to be worked to death in the Gulag.

He used him to baptize babies of people who’d never been inside a church, and to say mass inside his little hut once he was released from prison.

He also used him to tell his story to another priest so that it could be written down for us to read.

God used him this way because the person whispering that confession in the Gulag was God’s precious child. The babies he baptized in secret were God’s babies. The people who received the Eucharist in his hut were God’s children.

Fr Ciszek didn’t overturn Communism. But he was faithful to Christ in almost unendurable suffering, and his faithfulness saved souls.

There isn’t anything better than that.

From National Catholic Reporter:

The canonization cause for Jesuit Fr. Walter Ciszek — a Polish American priest who ministered amid years in Soviet captivity — has been terminated, although Vatican’s decision does not “diminish the enduring spiritual value” of his witness, said a leading advocate for the cause.

In an April 9 letter, Msgr. Ronald Bocian — board president of the former Father Walter Ciszek Prayer League — advised fellow league members that the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, had been informed the cause’s documentation “does not support” advancing the case for beatification or sainthood.

Bocian’s letter replicated a statement from the diocese, provided to OSV News April 17, saying the prayer league will now become the Father Walter J. Ciszek Society and “remain committed to honoring his memory, sharing his message, and encouraging devotion to the profound spiritual insights he left to the Church.”

“This development comes after years of careful study and discernment at the level of the Holy See, which bears the responsibility of evaluating each Cause with thoroughness, integrity, and fidelity to the Church’s norms,” said the diocese, which assumed responsibility for the cause following its initiation by the New Jersey-based Byzantine Catholic Eparchy of Passaic.

Previous Post

May 7, 2026

We’re 9 Weeks into a 4 Week War We "Won" 8 Weeks Ago

Next Post

May 23, 2026 Kentucky Repubs Vote the Straight Pedophile Ticket

Browse Our Archives

Select a Category 10 Commandments 2012 Election 2016 Election 2020 Election 2022 Election 2024 Election Abortion Addiction Adult Day Care Advent Africa AI Alcoholism Alex Pretti Renee Good America American Citizenship American Fascism Announcement Anti Semitism Anti-Semitism Apologetics Archbishop Coakley Argentina Armenian Genocide Ash Wednesday Ballot Box Salvation Biden Big Beautiful Bill Bishop Black Mass Blasphemy Boko Haram Book Review Brainwashing Breast Cancer Bribery Calling Evil Good calling good evil Cancer Canonize Caregiving Catholic Catholic Vote Cause for Sainthood Chaos child abuse Child Labor Child Rearing Child Sacrifice Christian Bashers Christian Leadership Christian Persecution Christian Solidarity Christianity Christmas clergy Clergy Sex Abuse Scandal Climate Coakley Common Good Communion Communism Computers concentration camps Conclave Confession Consecration to Our Lady Conversion Coptic Christians Coronavirus Corporatism Corruption COVID Crisis Pregnancy Centers Culture D Day Death Death Penalty Dementia Democracy Designer Baby Destruction of the Family Dictator Dignity of Work Divine Mercy Novena Divine Mercy Sunday Divorce Doubt Drug Addiction easter Ebola Economics Education Egg Harvesting El Salvador Elderly Epiphany Epstein eternal life Eternal Life Eucharist Eugenics Euthanizing Children Euthansia evangelization Excommunicate Biden Extraterrestrial Life Failed Clergy Faith False Gods Family Fascism Fatherhood Feast of the Assumption First Amendment Flood the Zone Following Christ forced conversion Forgiveness Fortnight4Freedom fourth amendment Fr James Altman Fr Stanley Rother free press Freedom Freedom of Conscience freedom of religion Freedom of Speech Freedom of Worship vs Religious Freedom Geek Stuff Gender Theory Genocide God the Father Good Friday Gossip GQP Greenland Grief Gun Control Gun Violence Hate Blogs Health Health Care Heart Attack Heaven Hell Herod HHS Mandate History of the Crusades Holy Father Holy Father' Holy Father's Tweets Holy Matrimony Holy Saturday Holy Spirit Holy Thursday Holy Week Home Homeschooling homosexual Hospice Human Dignity Human Rights human trafficking Humor ICE Idolatry Immaculate Conception Immigration Incest Infertility Inspiration Iran War ISIS Islam Islamic Brotherhood Israel JD Vance Jesus Jobs Jordan Judas Judicial and Legislative Murder Judicial Murder July 4 Just War Justice Kavanaugh Ketanji Jackson Brown Laity Latin Mass Leadership Lent Less of Me Lying Lying for Trump Mad King MAGA Magnifica humanitas Mama Marriage Marriage Protection Amendment Martyr Media Bias Medicaid Men and Abortion Mercy Military Dictatorship Misogyny Motherhood Movie Review Murder Music National Catholic Register Nazi Clergy Neo Nazis New Category New Evangelism New Evangelization News Headlines Nigeria No Kings Novena for the Persecuted Church Nuns Obama Oklahoma Oscar Romero Our Lady Our National Embarrassment Pakistan Palm Sunday Papal Conclave Papal G8 Pedophile piano political priests Political Whore Clergy Politics Polygamy Pope Francis Pope Francis Visit United States Pope Leo XIV Pope's Prayer Intentions Pornography Post Christian West Poverty Prayer Prayers for the Persecuted Church Pro Life Prophecy Prostitution Purgatory Putin Quack Medicine Racism Rape Religious Freedom Renee Good Republican Republican priests Rerum Novarum Retirement Risen Lord Roe v Wade Rosary Sacrament Sacred Heart Sacrilege Saints Salvation Same Sex Marriage Sanctity of Human Life Satan Save Our Democracy scandal Scripture Shroud of Turin Sisters Slavery Social Justice Social Security Solidarity Cross St Michael the Archangel stations of the cross Stop Late Term Abortion Stroke Suicide Supreme Court Surrogacy Surveillance State Synod Syria Taliban Tariffs Taxes Technology Thanksgiving The Ascension The Cross The Locust Class The Political Heresy The Resurrection The Tomb The Transfiguration The Trinity The War on Girls Tornado Trauma Trump Trump Coup Trump Destroying America Trump's Coup Trump's War on the Rule of Law Trumpism Ukraine Uncategorized USAID USCCB Vatican Vatican Reform Violence Against Women Violence in America Vocation Voting Rights Wages Walk for Life War Weight Loss White House Why Aren't You a Feminist Too? Woke Women Leaders Women's Rights Worker's Rights World Hunger World War I World War III World Youth Day Worship Writing Year of Faith

Select a Month October 2026 September 2026 August 2026 July 2026 June 2026 May 2026 April 2026 March 2026 February 2026 January 2026 December 2025 November 2025 October 2025 September 2025 August 2025 July 2025 June 2025 May 2025 April 2025 March 2025 February 2025 January 2025 July 2024 June 2024 May 2024 March 2024 February 2024 November 2023 October 2023 August 2023 July 2023 December 2022 November 2022 October 2022 August 2022 July 2022 June 2022 May 2022 April 2022 March 2022 February 2022 October 2021 July 2021 June 2021 May 2021 February 2021 January 2021 December 2020 November 2020 October 2020 September 2020 August 2020 July 2020 June 2020 May 2020 April 2020 March 2020 February 2020 January 2020 November 2018 October 2018 September 2018 August 2018 July 2018 June 2018 May 2018 April 2018 February 2018 January 2018 December 2017 November 2017 May 2017 April 2017 March 2017 February 2017 January 2017 December 2016 November 2016 August 2016 May 2016 April 2016 January 2016 December 2015 November 2015 October 2015 September 2015 August 2015 July 2015 June 2015 May 2015 April 2015 March 2015 February 2015 January 2015 December 2014 November 2014 October 2014 September 2014 August 2014 July 2014 June 2014 May 2014 April 2014 March 2014 February 2014 January 2014 December 2013 November 2013 October 2013 September 2013 August 2013 July 2013 June 2013 May 2013 April 2013 March 2013 February 2013 January 2013 December 2012 November 2012 October 2012 September 2012 August 2012 July 2012 June 2012 May 2012 January 2012

TAKE THE

Religious Wisdom Quiz

What city did the Good Samaritan's story happen on the road to?

Select your answer to see how you score.

Nazareth Jerusalem Bethlehem Jericho