BLAJ, Romania (CNS) — The memory and witness of Romania’s martyred bishops are a reminder that Christians are called to stand firm against ideologies that seek to stifle and suppress their cultural and religious traditions, Pope Francis said.
On the last leg of his visit to Romania, the pope June 2 celebrated a Divine Liturgy during which seven Eastern-rite Catholic bishops, who died during a fierce anti-religious campaign waged by the communist regime in Romania, were beatified.
“These pastors, martyrs for the faith, re-appropriated and handed down to the Romanian people a precious legacy that we can sum up in two words: freedom and mercy,” the pope said.
According to the Vatican, an estimated 60,000 people filled Blaj’s Liberty Field, while some 20,000 people followed the liturgy on big screens set up in various squares around the city.
Eastern Catholic bishops from Romania, Hungary, Slovakia and Ukraine were among the concelebrants, as well as Bishop John Michael Botean of the Eparchy of St. George’s, based in Canton, Ohio, the only Romanian Catholic eparchy outside of Romania.
For Eastern Catholics in Romania, Liberty Field — located on the grounds of Blaj’s Greek Catholic Theological Seminary — is both a symbol of national pride and sorrow.
It was in Liberty Field where, during the 100th anniversary of the Romanian nationalist revolution, communist authorities formerly dissolved the Eastern-rite Romanian Catholic Church.
One of the newly beatified bishops, Bishop Ioan Suciu, the apostolic administrator of Fagaras and Alba Iulia, refused to appear at the event, which was perceived by his flock as a sign that they were called to remain steadfast in their faith and follow the path of persecution and martyrdom.
Thirty years after the fall of communism, the sun shined brightly and solemn hymns echoed over the field that was once the site of the Eastern Catholic Church’s darkest period.
Men, women and children, many dressed in traditional outfits, held up images of the seven martyred bishops who gave their lives defending their faith: Bishop Suciu; Auxiliary Bishop Vasile Aftenie of Fagaras and Alba Iulia; Bishop Valeriu Traian Frentiu of Oradea Mare; Auxiliary Bishop Tit Liviu Chinezu of Fagaras and Alba Iulia; Bishop Ioan Balan of Lugoj; Bishop Alexandru Rusu of Maramures and Bishop Iuliu Hossu of Gherla, who had been named a cardinal by St. Paul VI “in pectore” or in his heart, withholding publication of his name until 1973.
In his homily, the pope remembered the sufferings of Eastern-rite Catholics who were forced to “endure a way of thinking and acting that showed contempt for others and led to the expulsion and killing of the defenseless and the silencing of dissenting voices.”
The martyred bishops left a “spiritual patrimony” for future generations demonstrated by their “exemplary faith and love for their people,” the pope said. Their faith, he added, was matched only by their willingness to suffer martyrdom “without showing hatred toward their persecutors and indeed responding to them with great meekness.”
“The mercy they showed to their tormentors is a prophetic message, for it invites everyone today to conquer anger and resentment by love and forgiveness, and to live the Christian faith with consistency and courage,” the pope said.
However, Pope Francis warned that even today there are new ideologies that “attempt to assert themselves and to uproot our peoples from their richest cultural and religious traditions.”
“Forms of ideological colonization that devalue the person, life, marriage and the family, and above all, with alienating proposals as atheistic as those of the past, harm our young people and children, leaving them without roots from which they can grow.”
Like the newly beatified bishops, he added, Catholics are called to bring the light of the Gospel to others and resist those ideologies rising in the world.
“May you be witnesses of freedom and mercy, allowing fraternity and dialogue to prevail over divisions, and fostering the fraternity of blood that arose in the period of suffering, when Christians, historically divided, drew closer and more united to one another,” the pope said.
The pope also recalled the witness of countless Catholics in the country who held on to hope and trusted God amid persecution during his first Mass in Romania, May 31, at St. Joseph Roman Catholic Cathedral in Bucharest.
Recalling their suffering, the pope said the tears of those persecuted Christians “were a prayer that rose to heaven and nurtured the hope of this people.”
“They did not put their hope in the world, but in the Lord, and thus they persevered. I would like to give thanks for these humble victors, these ‘saints-next-door,’ who showed us the way,” the pope said.
Prior to his trip, the pope said what the seven bishop martyrs suffered “is too precious a legacy to be forgotten.”
Caption 1: Pope Francis blesses an icon of the seven new Romanian Catholic bishop martyrs. The pope beatified the seven bishops, who were killed under the former communist regime, before tens of thousands of faithful during a Divine Liturgy at Liberty Field in Blaj, Romania, June 2. (Photo: Vatican News)
Caption 2: Pictured are six of seven bishops of the Romanian Catholic Church who were beatified by Pope Francis in Romania June 2. Clockwise: Auxiliary Bishop Vasile Aftenie of Fagaras and Alba Iulia; Bishop Ioan Balan of Lugoj, Auxiliary Bishop Tit Liviu Chinezu of Fagaras and Alba Iulia; Bishop Valeriu Traian Frentiu of Oradea Mare; Bishop Ioan Suciu, apostolic administrator of Fagaras and Alba Iulia; and Bishop Alexandru Rusu of Maramures. The seventh bishop who was beatified, Bishop Iuliu Hossu of Gherla, is not pictured. (CNS photo/courtesy Romanian Catholic bishops’ conference)
As published in Horizons, June 2, 2019. Sign up for Horizons’ digital newsletter.