Cardinal Marcello Semeraro, Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, presided at the beatification of Fr. Jan Macha at the Cathedral of Christ the King in Katowice, southwest Poland, on 20 November.
“The witness of Jan Franciszek Macha, now blessed, to the Lord Jesus is a truly heroic page of faith and charity in the history of this Church in Upper Silesia, ” preaching at the live-streamed Mass, the Italian cardinal said.
“He too died, just like the grain of wheat: he was killed by a Nazi system full of hatred for those who were sowing good, in order to show the people of today that earthly dominion is passing away, while the Kingdom of Christ — which, as its supreme law, has the commandment of charity — endures.”
Macha, known as Hanik, was born on Jan. 18, 1914, in Chorzów Stary, a village in the southern Polish province of Silesia. He had two sisters and a brother.
In 1934, he entered the Silesian Theological Seminary. He was ordained a priest for the Archdiocese of Katowice on June 25, 1939, just three months before Nazi Germany invaded Poland.
After a two-month substitution in his home parish, he was appointed to the parish church of St. Joseph in Ruda Śląska, a city near Katowice.
The Gestapo, the secret police of Nazi Germany, arrested Macha on Sept. 5, 1941, at a train station in Katowice. They found a list of people that he and his associates had helped, as well as other documents showing that they had collected money and given it to people in need.
After humiliating interrogations, Macha was sentenced to death by beheading at a brief hearing in Katowice on July 17, 1942.
He was executed by guillotine at a prison in Katowice at 12:15 a.m. on Dec. 3, 1942, despite his mother’s efforts to secure a pardon.
He was 28 years old when he died and had served only 1,257 days as a priest. His body was never recovered and is believed to have been incinerated at Auschwitz concentration camp.