Footprints of Freedom: Walking with Cardinal‑Martyr Iuliu Hossu

Imagine tracing history with your own feet, stepping where defenders of faith once trod and letting their courage inspire you. For more than twenty years, I have taught a course entitled “Italy in the Footsteps of the Saints.” Each year, the course reveals new, far‑reaching footprints for my students and me to follow. Some footprints belong to canonized saints, others to men and women still on their paths to sainthood.

Either way, following in their footsteps offers moral guidance. To walk where they walked is to cultivate aretē, the Greek ideal of excellence, courage, and self‑sacrifice.

Classical Sparta understood this logic; its constitution was modeled on the virtues of Heracles, urging young men to “live as Heracles would.” Later, the New Testament voices the same imperative, but focused on the Incarnate Word: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his footsteps” (1 Pet 2:21). Commenting on this verse, St Augustine insists that “words would not be enough unless example were added” and urges the faithful “to exult on the days of the holy martyrs and pray that you may be able to follow in their footsteps…” Patristic teaching weds the metaphor of footsteps to the concrete practice of imitation: feast days are empty unless they inspire a corresponding lifestyle.

That is what happened during our June study abroad course after tracing the paths of St. Padre Pio, St. Michael the Archangel, St. Elizabeth Ann Seton (co-founder of our institution), and Sts. Francis and Clare of Assisi, for whom literally “walking in the footsteps of Christ” became the charter of their orders. Standing where these saints stood and prayed made the readings come alive; the footprints were no longer a metaphor but a summons to the same aretē that animated the martyrs and every saint in between.

Blessed Iuliu Hossu: Bishop, Political Prisoner, Martyr

During this Jubilee Year, the students traced the footsteps of a twentieth‑century bishop‑martyr: Blessed Iuliu Hossu, Romanian Greek‑Catholic Bishop of Cluj‑Gherla and cardinal in pectore (that is, in secret). Fittingly, the Romanian Parliament has proclaimed 2025 the “Year of Cardinal Iuliu Hossu” to honor his life, work, character, and martyrdom; his decisive role in securing the Great Union of December 1, 1918; and his courageous efforts to save Jews during the Holocaust. Hossu was not only a bishop but also an ex‑officio senator of the Romanian Parliament, an honorary member of the Romanian Academy, and, under the communist regime, a political prisoner.

Bishop Hossu’s last ad limina visit to Rome “to venerate the tombs of the blessed Apostles Peter and Paul and to present himself to the Roman Pontiff” (canon 400 §1) took place in 1938. His quinquennial report of 1943 records no subsequent visit. World War II and the Second Vienna Award of August 30, 1940, which split his diocese so that “two parts” lay in Hungary and “one part” remained in Romania, compelled him to stay with his flock. Confronted with intense political, economic, and religious pressures, Hossu chose solidarity with his people over travel to Rome, and these circumstances effectively barred any further ad limina visits.

Bishop Hossu was arrested in Bucharest in October 1948, beginning a long Calvary witness to the Catholic Faith. For almost a year, he and the other Romanian Greek‑Catholic bishops were confined to the patriarchal villa at Dragoslavele. They were then transferred to the Monastery of Căldărușani (Feb 27, 1949-May 24, 1950) and afterward to the notorious extermination prison at Sighet (now Sighetu Marmatiei), located in northern Romania, where Hossu spent five years (May 1950-Jan 1955). Subsequent house arrest kept him first at the Monastery of Curtea de Argeș for a year, then at the Monastery of Ciorogârla, and finally back at Căldărușani, where he remained until his death on May 28, 1970, at the Colentina Hospital in Bucharest.

Msgr. Giuseppe Chielli informed him in March 1969 that Pope Paul VI intended to create him a cardinal, but the Romanian communist regime would allow the honor only if the bishop left Romania. Grateful yet unwilling to abandon his flock, Hossu refused exile in Rome. Pope Paul VI, therefore, named him cardinal in pectore at the consistory of April 28, 1969; the appointment was revealed publicly only in March 1973, three years after Hossu’s death.

A witness for the entire Church

Standing in the very spot where Cardinal‑Martyr Iuliu Hossu last celebrated the Divine Liturgy at St Peter’s Basilica, turned our textbooks into living reality. The footprints of saints and martyrs were no longer a classroom metaphor; they became a summons to the same aretē heroic excellence of Heracles, the martyrs, and saints.

On June 1, 2025, our group joined Romanian pilgrims in Rome to honor their martyred cardinal. The Greek‑Catholic Divine Liturgy in St Peter’s Basilica gathered more than a thousand faithful from Romania and the diaspora, along with bishops of the Romanian Greek‑Catholic Church, Apostolic Nuncio Giampiero Gloder, and other dignitaries. During the celebration, Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, Prefect of the Dicastery for the Eastern Churches, announced that Cardinal Hossu’s relics will be permanently enshrined in St. Peter’s Basilica.

Placing the relics of a modern, non‑Italian, Greek‑Catholic bishop in St Peter’s Basilica is extraordinary, an unmistakable sign that Cardinal Hossu’s witness belongs to the whole Church, not only to Romania or the Greek‑Catholic community. Reserving space for his relics beside those of ancient saints and popes, near St Peter himself, the skull of St Andrew, a fragment of the True Cross, St Veronica’s veil, and relics of the Apostles Simon and Jude Thaddeus, will make the basilica a new pilgrimage point for Eastern Catholics and a living monument to the Church’s resistance to atheistic communism.

Hossu’s twenty‑two years of prison, exile, and house arrest stand on a level with the blood of the early martyrs. Housing his relics in the Church’s principal basilica embodies the Catholic axiom “unity, not uniformity,” echoing Pope Leo XIV’s recent words to Eastern Christians: “The Church needs you (The East). The contribution that the Christian East can offer us today is immense!” By honoring the Blessed Bishop, the Vatican also invites Orthodox faithful to see their liturgical heritage revered at the very heart of Catholicism.

This was the first Eastern Catholic Divine Liturgy that my students had ever attended. Surrounded by towering statues, clouds of incense, sung Scripture, and the Epiclesis—the solemn invocation of the Holy Spirit during the Eucharistic Prayer—they received a catechesis that engaged all five senses. The celebration touched and taught on many levels. Cardinal Hossu had chosen prison rather than renounce communion with Rome, and in 1944, he pleaded for the persecuted Jews with words he never retracted, even under torture:

Our plea is addressed to all of you, venerable brothers and beloved children, to help the Jews not only with your thoughts, but also with your sacrifice, knowing that there is no act more noble to be carried out today than providing Christian and Romanian assistance, born of ardent human charity. Our first concern in the present moment must be this work of relief. (Pastoral letter April 2, 1944)

By encountering his story in the very space where he once prayed, students saw how truth‑telling can carry a price yet shape law, public memory, and minority rights. The liturgy became a living lesson in the strength of non‑violent resistance.

Attending an Eastern Catholic liturgy while walking in the footsteps of the saints, students discovered unity of faith without uniformity: the same Eucharistic theology expressed through different vestments, chants, and gestures. The liturgy met their Sunday obligation and widened their ecclesial imagination. First‑hand contact with a community once outlawed for decades (from 1948 to 1989) transformed abstract talk about totalitarianism and religious persecution into living memory. They did not merely read about persecution; they worshiped with the persecuted faithful of Romania who embodied Cardinal‑Martyr Hossu’s motto, “Our faith is our life.” Venerating Hossu’s relics in St Peter’s Basilica provides a tangible, incarnational link with his witness for generations to come. A pilgrimage, or even a brief prayer before his reliquary, turns history into a relationship and invites each pilgrim to make faith a lifelong promise.

First Peter 2:21 captures the heart of Italy in the Footsteps of the Saints: “Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example that you should follow in his footsteps.” Cardinal Hossu’s life shows students how that verse looks in the twenty‑first century and challenges them to trace the same pattern today, integrating worship, conscience, and action.

And so our course ends where every pilgrimage should: with the conviction that if our steps do not preach, our journey is unfinished.

• Video: Commemoration of Cardinal Iuliu Hossu, June 2, 2025, by Pope Leo XIV: