Władysław Findysz

On July 8, 1941, Father Findysz was appointed administrator of the parish of Saints Peter and Paul in Nowy Żmigród, before officially becoming its parish priest on August 13, 1942. It was in this parish that he would carry out the bulk of his pastoral and charitable work.

During the Nazi occupation, he devoted himself tirelessly to providing material and spiritual support to his parishioners, regardless of nationality or confession. He organized relief for the most destitute, maintained regular correspondence with the faithful deported to Germany for forced labor, and saved numerous families of the Lemko ethnic group (of Greek-Catholic confession) from deportation and persecution.

On October 3, 1944, as the war front approached, Father Findysz was expelled from Nowy Żmigród by the German authorities, like the entire local population. The town was almost entirely destroyed. As early as January 23, 1945, after the withdrawal of German troops, he returned to his ruined parish to undertake its material and spiritual reconstruction, notably organizing Christian funerals for the victims of the war.

Under the post-war Polish communist regime, his ministry encountered growing hostility from the authorities. From 1946, he was placed under the close surveillance of the security services (Urząd Bezpieczeństwa). In 1952, he was suspended from his duties as a catechist at the local high school. Furthermore, the civil authorities twice refused him (in 1952 and 1954) permission to stay in the border zone, which prevented him from visiting a portion of the faithful in his own parish. Despite these constant persecutions, he courageously continued his work of moral regeneration, striving to preserve the youth from the forced atheization promoted by the regime.

In 1963, in the spirit of the Second Vatican Council, Father Findysz launched a pastoral initiative entitled the "Conciliar Works of Charity" (Soborowe Czyny Dobroci). He sent letters of exhortation to his parishioners living in irregular moral or religious situations, inviting them with gentleness but firmness to reorder their Christian lives and return to the sacraments.

This zealous activity provoked the anger of the communist authorities. They accused him of violating the Decree on the Protection of Freedom of Conscience and Religion of August 5, 1949, claiming that he was "forcing citizens to participate in religious rites." After being interrogated by the prosecutor of Rzeszów, he was arrested on November 25, 1963, and incarcerated at the castle of Rzeszów.

His trial, which was purely political and defamatory in nature, took place on December 16 and 17, 1963, before the Voivodeship Court of Rzeszów. He was sentenced to two years and six months in prison.

Father Findysz was seriously ill at the time. In September 1963, he had undergone major thyroid surgery at the hospital in Gorlice and was suffering from esophageal cancer for which a second surgical intervention was scheduled for December 1963. In detention, he was subjected to inhumane living conditions, malnutrition, and constant physical and psychological humiliation. The prison authorities deliberately refused to grant him the required medical care and blocked the surgery that could have saved his life.

On January 25, 1964, he was transferred to the central prison on Montelupich Street in Kraków. Faced with the prisoner's extreme exhaustion and the imminence of his death, the Supreme Court suspended his sentence, and he was released under conditions on February 29, 1964. He returned to Nowy Żmigród in a state of total physical collapse. In April 1964, a specialized medical examination in Wrocław confirmed that his esophageal cancer was now inoperable due to its advanced stage. He endured his final months of suffering with heroic patience, abandoning himself totally to the will of God.

Father Findysz passed away on the morning of August 21, 1964, at the rectory of Nowy Żmigród. His funeral took place on August 24, 1964, presided over by Bishop Stanisław Jakiel, Auxiliary Bishop of Przemyśl, in the presence of 130 priests and a huge crowd of the faithful. This celebration turned into a public manifestation of faith and a silent protest against communist oppression.

The diocesan process for beatification was officially opened on June 27, 2000, by Bishop Kazimierz Górny of Rzeszów, after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the nihil obstat decree on May 23, 2000. The diocesan inquiry was closed on October 18, 2002, and the documents were transmitted to Rome.

On December 20, 2004, Pope John Paul II approved the decree recognizing the martyrdom of Father Findysz, attesting that he offered his life in odium fidei (in hatred of the faith) due to the mistreatment and deliberate deprivation of medical care he suffered in prison. As a martyr, no miracle was required for his beatification.

The solemn beatification ceremony took place on June 19, 2005, at Piłsudski Square in Warsaw, during the closing of the Polish National Eucharistic Congress. It was presided over, in the name of Pope Benedict XVI, by Cardinal Józef Glemp, Primate of Poland. Father Findysz was thus recognized as the first official martyr of the communist regime in Poland.

The life and ministry of Father Findysz are centered around the figure of Christ the Good Shepherd. His unreserved pastoral dedication, his attentive charity towards the poor and the persecuted of all origins, as well as his doctrinal firmness in the face of attempts to atheize society, characterize his spirituality.

His relics now rest in a sarcophagus adorned with Eucharistic symbols and a stole, located in the side chapel dedicated to Our Lady of Sorrows within the Church of Saints Peter and Paul in Nowy Żmigród. This place of worship was officially erected as a diocesan sanctuary on August 23, 2011, by Bishop Jan Wątroba, Bishop of Rzeszów.

His liturgical memory is celebrated on August 23, a day of feast and indulgences in his sanctuary of Nowy Żmigród and in the parish dedicated to him in Rzeszów. The Roman Martyrology also lists him on August 21, the day of his death.