The canonization cause of Father Walter Ciszek, a Jesuit priest who spent 23 years in Soviet captivity and credited his survival to “God’s providence,” has been suspended after documentation did not advance the case, according to recent reports.
The Walter Ciszek Prayer League announced April 9 that the Diocese of Allentown, Pennsylvania, had been informed that the documentation related to Fr. Ciszek’s possible beatification did not advance his cause following years of evaluation by the Holy See.
The cause for his canonization began in March 2012. According to Aleteia, each cause undergoes a thorough review by the Vatican to determine whether a candidate can be publicly recognized as a saint. Such reviews may conclude that, despite evidence of a holy life, a cause should not advance further. Specific reasons for the suspension of Fr. Ciszek’s cause have not been disclosed.
Ordained in 1937 after studying in Rome at a center that trained priests for future ministry in Russia, Fr. Ciszek was first assigned to serve in Poland. At the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he entered Russia under false identification “in hopes to minister to their spiritual needs,” he wrote in his spiritual memoir, He Leadeth Me, before his arrest by secret police as a suspected spy.
Fr. Ciszek later reflected in his book on his years of “intense questioning” during interrogation as a suspected “Vatican spy,” after which he was sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberian prison camps.
Forced to work in a Gulag coal mine, Fr. Ciszek still found opportunities to secretly administer sacraments to those around him.
“For all the hardships and suffering endured there,” Fr. Ciszek said, according to Jesuits, “the prison camps of Siberia held one great consolation for me: I was able to function as a priest again. I was able to say Mass again, although in secret, to hear confessions, to baptize, to comfort the sick, and to minister to the dying.”
In He Leadeth Me, Fr. Ciszek wrote, “Through the long years of isolation and suffering, God had led me to an understanding of life and his love that only those who have experienced it can fathom.”
He said the trials he endured during his captivity stripped him of the “external consolations" of the world and instead left him with the “simple truths” of faith.
“And yet what a profound difference [simple truths] made in my life, what strength they gave me, what courage to go on!”
While the formal cause has been suspended, Fr. Ciszek’s witness of faith amid suffering continues to inspire the faithful as they reflect on trust in God’s providence.
Monsignor Ronald C. Bocian, board president of the Walter Ciszek Prayer League, echoed this, in the April 9 announcement that “the grace flowing from his witness remains alive in the hearts of the faithful.” He added that the suspension does not “diminish” Fr. Ciszek’s spiritual legacy, citing the Jesuit priest’s “unwavering trust in the Lord amidst extraordinary suffering.”