Bl. Władysław Findysz

Władysław Findysz was born in 1907 in south-eastern Poland, to a farming family, and ordained in 1932. From 1942 he was parish priest of Nowy Żmigród. During and after the war he helped all his parishioners, whatever their nationality or religion.

In the 1960s, during the Second Vatican Council, he wrote letters to his parishioners urging them to renew their Christian lives. The Communist authorities charged him with "forcing the faithful into religious practices" and sentenced him to two and a half years in prison. He had cancer and needed surgery, but the prison denied him treatment. Released in a state of exhaustion, he died in 1964. He was beatified in 2005.

Władysław Findysz was beatified in 2005 by Benedict XVI.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.