Czech cardinal reflects on martyrs under communism ahead of priest beatifications

Cardinal Michael Czerny this week reflected on the martyrdom of Catholics who gave witness to Jesus Christ under communist rule in eastern and central Europe during the “Blessed Martyrs Under Communism” conference in Rome hosted by the Czech Republic’s embassy to the Holy See.

Czerny, the Czech-born prefect for the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development, discussed the canonization causes of two Czech priests — Father Jan Bula and Father Václav Drbola — who will be beatified June 6.

“The witness of Father Jan and Father Václav addresses each of us individually in our daily struggles, big and small,” Czerny said at the May 20 conference, according to the Vatican-run Vatican News.

“Their martyrdom teaches us that there is no human situation — however degrading or unjust — in which Christ cannot be witnessed,” he said.

According to the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, both priests were imprisoned and killed between 1951 and 1952 amid the Czechoslovak communist regime’s persecution of the Catholic Church following World War II. They were in the Diocese of Brno.

Both priests worked extensively with the Catholic youth and were eventually imprisoned. According to the dicastery, both priests were falsely accused in prison of plotting to assassinate communist officials and were subsequently executed.

The dicastery states they were persecuted and killed for their pastoral work and the regime’s hatred of the Catholic faith.

“For Jan and Václav, God’s hands were their support behind the bars of the Jihlava prison, their defense during long interrogations, and the safeguard of their dignity, which remained intact even amid the most degrading humiliations,” Czerny said at the conference.

“The communist regime did not merely want to kill them; it wanted to annihilate their priestly identity,” he said. “It wanted them to betray, to deny, to renounce their faith.”

Czerny said Bula and Václav “were able to transform the darkness of hatred and the cold of the gallows into the place of their living encounter with the Lord.“ He said they “testified with their very lives that light can pierce the dark clouds in history.”

“We admire the splendor of the grain of wheat that, after remaining hidden for decades in the furrow of Bohemian and Moravian soil — nurtured despite a difficult history and fertilized by sacrifice — now springs forth before our eyes,” Czerny said.

This sprout, which broke through the frozen ground of atheism and oppression, is proof that no violence can stifle the life of God in those who entrust themselves to him.”

Cardinal Michael Czerny

prefect of the Dicastery for Promoting Integral Human Development

“This sprout, which broke through the frozen ground of atheism and oppression, is proof that no violence can stifle the life of God in those who entrust themselves to him,” he added.

Czerny said the beatification of the two martyrs shows the reality of Christ’s promise in Matthew 28:20 that “I am with you always,” with the prefect saying the promise “shines forth fulfilled and written in the blood and joy of these two priests.”

“May their sacrificial offering help us to be Christians, citizens, men and women who know how to ‘lose’ our lives in service, forgiveness, and truth,” he said, “that beyond the veil of trial and death, awaiting us is the bright light of God’s loving smile and a joy that no one will ever be able to take from us.”

Pope Leo XIV approved the beatification of the two priests in October 2025 along with nine servants of God who were martyred by the Nazi regime because of its hatred of the Catholic faith.

Source: https://www.ewtnnews.com/vatican/czech-cardinal-martyrs-under-communism