Semeraro, prefect of the Vatican Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, traveled from Rome to celebrate the beatification in Krakow. He pronounced the formula of beatification before a packed shrine of around 1,800 people, including Rapacz’s great-great niece and nephew, Karolina Basista and Michał Pietrzak.
The Mass also marked the end of a Eucharistic congress in the Archdiocese of Krakow.
According to Semeraro, for the new blessed, “spreading love for Christ present in the consecrated Bread was the only effective remedy against atheism, materialism and all those worldviews that threaten human dignity.”
From the Eucharist, the cardinal added, Father Rapacz drew a love that “does not remain paralyzed in the face of hatred, violence and everything that causes fear.”
Rapacz was recognized as a martyr, according to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, because of his refusal to leave his parish or to abandon his pastoral ministry, despite a ban on the celebration of Catholic liturgies and activities under the occupations of Poland by Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union.
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