London, England, May 28, 2022 / 04:00 am
Fifty years ago, the lives of two heroic Polish Catholics crossed at St. John’s Archcathedral in Warsaw’s Old Town.
A photograph from that day — May 28, 1972 — shows Cardinal Stefan Wyszyński clasping the hands of Jerzy Popiełuszko between his own during the 24-year-old’s ordination to the priesthood.
Today, both men are blesseds and their portraits can be seen in churches throughout Poland.
Great suffering lay ahead of them, but that spring day was joyful. Wyszyński ordained a total of 31 new priests: an impressive number given the hardships that Poland’s Catholics suffered under a communist regime that sought to stifle the Church.