Beatification cause of reputed stigmatist tortured by Stalin’s secret police opens

November 9, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

CNA Staff, Nov 9, 2020 / 08:30 am (CNA).- The beatification cause of a Polish religious sister who was tortured by Joseph Stalin’s secret police and reputedly bore the stigmata opened Monday.

Cardinal Kazimierz Nycz inaugurated the diocesan phase of the cause of Sr. Wanda Boniszewska in the chapel of Archbishop’s House, Warsaw, Nov. 9.

Boniszewska, who died in 2003 at the age of 96, was a member of the Congregation of the Sisters of Angels, a habitless Polish religious community founded in 1889.

Her “Spiritual Journal,” published in 2016, recorded her mystical experiences between 1921 and 1980. Commentators have drawn parallels between the work and the “Diary” of Polish saint Faustina Kowalska.

Boniszewska’s spirituality centered on offering her sufferings for the expiation of sins, especially those of priests. The opening of her cause coincides with a series of high-profile clerical abuse cases in the Polish Church.

During Monday’s solemn ceremony, Nycz swore in members of a tribunal that will examine how the sister lived the virtues heroically — one of the requirements for beatification.

The cardinal issued an edict Oct. 2 announcing that Warsaw archdiocese intended to launch the beatification process. The decree described the work undertaken so far and appealed for documents, letters, and messages relating to Boniszewska to be sent to the postulator of her cause.

“All this should be done for the greater glory of God,” the Warsaw archbishop wrote.

Nycz’s edict offered a summary of the life of Boniszewska, who was born in 1907 in Kamionka, near the city of Novogrudok, in modern-day Belarus.

At the age of 16, she sought to enter the Congregation of the Sisters of Angels in Vilnius, the present-day capital of Lithuania.

After her first profession, Boniszewska said that Jesus asked her to offer her sufferings for the expiation of the sins of “souls consecrated to Me.” She made her full profession in 1933, after which she reputedly received the stigmata — wounds corresponding to those of Jesus at the Crucifixion.

On April 11, 1950, the sister was arrested and tortured by the NKVD, the Soviet secret police and a forerunner of the KGB. A year later, she was exiled to Siberia.

She was released by the Soviet authorities in 1956 and returned to Poland.

Boniszewska died on March 2, 2003, in Konstancin-Jeziorna, a town south of Warsaw, having spent 76 years as a religious sister.

Speaking at the opening of her cause, postulator Fr. Michał Siennicki said: “The process that we are beginning today aims to show that heroism is possible even in the most difficult circumstances of life. Wanda Boniszewska, despite the unjust sentencing to years of Soviet imprisonment, remained heroically before Christ, witnessing to him, and bearing the wounds of Christ on her body, and offering her sufferings for priests.’’

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Legion of Christ responds to ‘Paradise Papers’ claims of offshore accounts

November 18, 2017 CNA Daily News 3

Rome, Italy, Nov 18, 2017 / 06:01 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Reports about the Legion of Christ’s offshore accounts date to the time of its disgraced founder and do not apply to the religious institute today, a spokesman has said.

“Today the Legion of Christ does not own offshore companies nor does it own resources in offshore companies,” Legionaries of Christ spokesman Father Aaron Smith told Vatican Insider.

“The companies, in Bermuda, Panama, Jersey and Virgin Islands, to which the articles refer, were created at the time when Father Marcial Maciel was general manager and then were closed,” he said.

According to Smith, the offshore companies were managed “in compliance with the law and were not shell companies used for illegal activities.”

Vatican analyst Andrea Tornielli, writing at Vatican Insider, summarized several reports on the topic

These reports drew on the Paradise Papers, a collection of 13.4 million documents on various entities’ offshore finances that were reputedly obtained in a computer hack of the offshore law firm Appleby. The collection covers six decades, through the year 2014.

The documents were leaked to a German newspaper and shared with a network of journalists, including the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists. The documents began to be released Nov. 5.

Based on these documents, the Italian television program Report and the weekly magazine L’Espresso had reported that the International Volunteer Services company had been set up in Bermuda to protect the millions in revenues from the Legion’s education institutes. The alleged $300 million in revenues were said to come from the fees of more than 160,000 students around the world.

The first offshore company created, The Society for Better Education, was reportedly founded in July 1992. L’Espresso claimed the money was “secretly moved abroad and managed by Father Maciel personally, who rigidly controlled his collaborators.” The offshore network’s Rome address was the headquarters of the Legion in Italy.

L’Espresso had said that the Caserta Children’s Village would have suffered a $33 million loss through money going abroad.

Smith, however, said it was false to claim that over $300 million had been channeled annually through the International Volunteer Services company.

His comments contradicted L’Espresso’s claim that the Legion’s offshore network had not been fully closed. It had claimed that some companies that opened in the 1980s in Panama are still registered, as are some in the British crown dependency of Jersey off the coast of France.

Smith cited a 2014 statement from the Commission for the Study and Review of the Economic Situation of the Congregation of the Legionaries of Christ which said there was “no misappropriation of money or other irregularities in the annual audit.”

Legionaries-backed activities today “have societies that allow them to operate in compliance with the laws in force in those countries where they carry out their pastoral mission,” Smith said.

The educational institutions “have no relations” with offshore companies and work “transparently,” are audited, and “comply with the legal and tax provisions of the respective countries,” Smith said.

He denied any links between the Caserta Children’s Village and offshore companies.

The Legion of Christ was long the subject of critical reports and rumors before it was rocked by Vatican acknowledgment that its charismatic founder, Fr. Maciel, lived a double life, sexually abused seminarians, and fathered children.

In 2006 the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith, with the approval of Benedict XVI, removed Maciel from public ministry and ordered him to spend the rest of his life in prayer and penance. The Vatican congregation decided not to subject him to a canonical process because of his advanced age.
 
From that point, Pope Benedict carried on a process of reform for the Legion of Christ, a process continued under Pope Francis.

As of 2016, the institute had 963 priests, 1,650 male religious, and 121 parishes. Its associated lay movement is Regnum Christi.

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