On January 24, Pope Francis approved the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Father Michal Rapacz, who was assassinated in Poland by communists due to their hatred for the faith, on May 12, 1946. With this recognition, the priest from the Archdiocese of Krakow, where Pope John Paul II was once Archbishop, will be proclaimed blessed.
The Archdiocese of Krakow notes on its website that after the end of World War II (1939-1945), when communists came to power in Poland, they also sought to eliminate the Catholic clergy, just as the Nazis had attempted before. Father Michal was one of many Polish priests who lost their lives at the hands of communists in the country.
Father Michal was born on September 16, 1904, in the village of Tenczyn, to a family of peasants. He attended primary school in his hometown and then high school in Myślenice. In 1926, he entered the Major Seminary of Krakow and was ordained a priest on February 1, 1931, at the age of 26.
He worked in the parishes of Ploki, Raicza, and again in Ploki, where he focused on serving the youth, demonstrating an intense life of prayer, as well as zeal and love in his daily work.
He also provided material and spiritual assistance to the poor, whose numbers had significantly increased after the war. This did not please the communists, who also could not tolerate his “bold claim to the place of God and the Church in social life,” according to the Archdiocese of Krakow.
The communists eventually sentenced him to death for this and he had received several threats. In response, he said: “I am ready to give my life for my sheep.” On the night of May 11-12, 1946, a group of communists took him to a forest near his parish and executed him. Witnesses report that his last words were: “Father, let your will be done.”
A group of faithful, who were waiting for him for the morning Mass, learned of the news and rushed to the forest. A witness recounts: “People were crying at the crime scene. I heard the following words: ‘the priest died for his faith’. They soaked handkerchiefs in Father Rapacz's blood because they said it was ‘the blood of a saint, a saint’.”
This article was originally published on ACI Prensa.
Walter Sanchez Silva is a senior writer for ACI Prensa. He has experience in researching and covering international ecclesiastical events such as World Youth Days (WYD) in Cologne 2005, Madrid 2011, and Rio 2013; the Fifth General Conference of the Latin American Episcopal Council in Aparecida; as well as the trips of Pope Benedict XVI in May 2007 to Brazil and in 2012 to Mexico. He covered Pope Francis' trip to South Korea in 2014 and the Synods of Bishops in the Vatican in 2015 (on the family) and 2019 (on the Amazon). He was also sent to cover the aftermath of the earthquake in Haiti in 2010 and served as a field producer in Buenos Aires in 2013 for the documentary "Pope Francis: The Pope of the New World".
