Venerable Jan Pietraszko

Jan Pietraszko (7 August 1911 - 2 March 1988) was a Polish Roman Catholic bishop who served as one of the auxiliaries for the Kraków archdiocese and Titular Bishop of Turrisblanda from 1962 until his death. Pietraszko was a noted spiritual director and chaplain as well as a popular confessor but was best known for his sermons and for his homiletic writings. He did his ecclesial studies just before World War II broke out and was a brief hostage of the Gestapo after the Nazi forces invaded Poland in 1939. He later came under the watch of the communist secret service following the conflict for his attempt to see new churches constructed and church art and architecture preserved. The process for his beatification opened in 1994 and he became titled as a Servant of God. The cause culminated on 21 December 2018 after Pope Francis confirmed his heroic virtue which enabled for Pietraszko to be titled as Venerable. Jan Pietraszko was born on 7 August 1911 in Buczkowice as the eldest of three children to the poor farmers Józef Pietraszko and Anna Migdał (d. 11.5.1914); he received his baptism in the Transfiguration church on 13 August from Father Andrzej Lenart. His two brothers were Władysław and Józef. His mother died when he was three after which his father married his sister-in-law on 15 August 1916 with whom he had seven children thus leaving Pietraszko with five half-sisters and two half-brothers. Pietraszko did his initial schooling in Buczkowice from 1917 until 1923 and then did high school in Bielsko-Biała; he graduated from high school in 1931 and following this commenced his ecclesial studies. He did his theological studies in the Jagiellonian and then received his sacerdotal ordination to the priesthood on 5 April 1936 (Palm Sunday) from the then-Archbishop Adam Stefan Sapieha in the Saint Francis church. From 1938 until 1939 and again from 1943 until 1944 he served as the aide and chaplain to Archbishop Sapieha.