Father Walter Ciszek SJ; 1904-1984

By Sister Irene Hartman, OP

“But God, this isn’t fair. I didn’t know life in the Soviet Union would be like this.” Thus prayed the emaciated prisoner Father Walter when he found hunger, extreme cold, hard labor, and rejection by so-called Catholics who refused his priestly activities out of fear of authorities.

Walter was born in the mining town of Shenandoah, PA of Polish immigrants who had come to America in the 1890s. Joining a gang, he wanted to fit in. But this changed when he announced that he was going to study for the priesthood and joined the Jesuit novitiate in New York in 1928. At this time, Pope Pius XI was begging for priests to go to the Soviet Union as missionaries. This invitation appealed to Walter and he was soon sent to Rome to study theology and the Russian language, history, and liturgy. In 1937 he was ordained a priest in the Byzantine Rite in Rome.

The year 1938 found Father Walter ministering in a Jesuit mission in eastern Poland. With the outbreak of the war in 1939, the Soviet Union occupied Poland and forced Father Walter to close his mission. In 1940, he found it easy to immigrate under an assumed name to the Soviet Union along with many refugees going East. He traveled with two fellow Jesuits over a thousand miles by train to a logging town in the Ural Mountains. There he worked as an unskilled logger, while carrying on religious ministry as opportunities became available.

Father Walter was arrested in 1941, accused of espionage for the Vatican, and sent to the Lubyanka prison in Moscow. There he spent five years, mostly in solitary confinement. He was convicted of espionage and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor. However, in 1946, he was sent by train and boat to Siberia. There he was forced to shovel coal onto freighter vessels, and later was transferred to work in coal mines and ore processing plants.

Throughout his lengthy imprisonment, Father Walter continued to pray, to celebrate Mass whenever possible, hear confessions, conduct retreats, and do parish ministry. Often his companions would refuse to associate with him, fearing greater penalties if found going to Mass or praying. In his two books, “With God in Russia,” and “He Leadeth Me,” he tells of his strange prayer, calling God unjust and unfair to have treated him so badly: “God, it isn’t fair. I gave my life for you and this is how you treat me. I want to go home.” All through these many years of imprisonment, he was never permitted to have any association with his family, who thought he was dead and even celebrated a funeral Mass for him in the States.

By April 22, 1955, his hard labor sentence was complete and he was released with some restrictions in the city of Norilsk. He was finally able to write to his sisters in the United States. Moving to Krasnoyarsk, he established mission parishes, and when this was discovered, he was removed to Abakan, where he worked as an automobile mechanic for four more years.

Finally in 1963, the Soviet Union decided to return him to the States in exchange for two Soviet agents. His release came after 23 years of imprisonment on Oct. 12, 1963. “I am an American, happy to be home, but in many ways I am almost a stranger.” In 1965 he began lecturing at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University, and counseling until his death on December 8, 1984.

Since 1990, Father Walter Ciszek SJ has been under investigation by the Roman Catholic Church for possible beatification or canonization. His current title is a Servant of God.