Ignacy Posadzy

Ignacy Posadzy, SChr was a Polish Catholic priest who ministered to Polish migrants from the interwar period through World War II and during the rule of Communist Poland. At the direction of Cardinal August Hlond, he co-founded an order dedicated to serving Polish migrants, the Society of Christ.
He served as superior general of the Society from 1932 to 1968. In 1958, he founded an order of religious sisters, dedicated to serving Polish migrants, the Missionary Sisters of Christ the King. During World War II, he was appointed spiritual leader of Polish slave labourers in Nazi Germany with the permission of Pope Pius XII, Adam Sapieha, the archbishop of Kraków and the leader of the Catholic Church in occupied Poland and the Home Army.
Posadzy's cause for sainthood was opened in 2001 and was declared a venerable by Pope Francis in 2022.

Early life

Ignacy Posadzy was born on February 17, 1898, in Szadłowice, near Inowrocław, to Jakub and Katarzyna Posadzy. His parents came from a very religious background and raised their children according. Ignacy was their eighth child and was brought up in a strongly religious and patriotic family environment.
In 1905, when at his primary school in Szadłowice, religion was taught in German instead of Polish, Ignacy started a strike, together with the other children. He participated in the strike with his sister Anna, who was two years his senior. After completing primary school, in 1908, he began attending gymnasium in Inowrocław. Ignacy successfully completed gymnasium despite the difficulties faced by Polish youth, who were required to have much greater knowledge of the German language and other subjects than what was required of German youth. In turn, only a few Poles completed gymnasium and the subsequent final examination. During the partitions of Poland, Polish families taught the Polish language, literature, history and culture secretly at home.

Seminary

In 1917, Posadzy entered the Archbishop's Seminary in Poznań. During World War I, he continued his studies in Münster and Fulda. It was there that Posadzy first encountered the plight of Polish emigrants. He witnessed the struggles of seasonal workers, particularly those from Russian Poland. Polish seasonal workers lived in the immediate vicinity of Münster and Fulda, and he met with these many times. They complained to him about the hard working conditions, especially about the lack of Polish pastoral care. As a seminarian, together with his fellow seminarians, he ministered to those migrants, gave lectures and prayed together with them.
After the war ended, he completed his studies in the seminaries in Gniezno and Poznań. Posadzy was ordained a subdeacon on October 10, 1920. On December 5, 1920, he was ordained a deacon. On February 19, 1921, he was ordained a diocesan priest by Bishop Wilhelm Kloske in the Gniezno Cathedral.

Early priesthood

After ordination, Posadzy worked in parish ministry in Poznań. His preaching and his dedication to hearing confessions were soon noted by his superiors. After three years of work at the Poznań Fara, he was entrusted with the role of prefect at the State Teachers' Seminary in Poznań. He wrote for Catholic periodicals and was active in religious journalism. He became friends with Nikodem Cieszyński, editor of "Rocznik Katolicki". Posadzy also became a co-editor of "Biblioteka Kaznodziejska" and "Wiadomości dla Duchowieństwa". He was also a member of the Polish Writers' Union.
Following his ordination, Posadzy spent his vacations by travelling abroad and living among Polish emigrants. In 1923, he stayed in Saxony and Bavaria, where he organised services for Polish emigrants on Sundays and holidays. In July 1924, he spent time serving in Hesse. He made another pastoral journey in 1925. In August 1926, on behalf of the State Emigration Office, he left for Denmark. In 1928, he visited Polish communities in Romania. In 1929, sent by August Hlond, Posadzy travelled to Brazil, Uruguay and Argentina to gather information regarding the Polish communities there. The visitation lasted from May to September 1929.
In May 1930, he attended in the International Eucharistic Congress in Carthage.
In 1930, again at the request of Hlond, Posadzy made another journey across the Atlantic to once again visit the Polish migrant communities in Brazil, Argentina, and Uruguay. The second visitation lasted longer than the first, from June 1930 to June 1931.
In 1938, Posadzy published a memoir of his travels to the Polish communities of South America, "The Way of the Pilgrims".

Society of Christ

In 1932, Hlond entrusted Posadzy with the establishment of a new religious order, the Society of Christ. Posadzy served as its Superior General until 1968.

Foundation

In 1930, prior to Posadzy's making his second visitation of the Polish communities in South America, Hlond asked Posadzy to consider leading a new religious order that Hlond was seeking to establish. The order would later come to be known as the Society of Christ. The missionary order would send priests around the world to serve Polish migrants wherever they resided.
Hlond had considered for some time entrusting the spiritual care of the Polish diaspora ministry to a religious congregation. He had come to see that sending diocesan priests for that sort of ministry had borne little fruit. Initially, Hlond had tried to pass the pastoral ministry of Poles in exile to the Resurrectionists or to the Oratorians. Neither proposal came to fruition and so Hlond started to work toward founding a new religious congregation after Pope Pius XI explicitly recommended that such an order be founded.
In response to Hlond's request to lead the new religious order, Posadzy initially replied that his health was poor and that he lacked the organisational skills for such an undertaking. Posadzy requested a few days to consider Hlon's proposal. The next day, however, Posadzy told Hlond that he was ready to undertake the task of organizing the new order. After his conversation with Hlond, Posadzy went to Dukla Forest, where, in the Hermitage of St. John of Dukla, he made a private 10-day retreat.
After the retreat, Posadzy began promoting the mission of the emerging congregation. He organized lectures during which he reflected on his last trip to the Polish communities of South America. During the lectures, he displayed his own pictures depicting the life of Polish emigrants in South America. In Poznań, he gave a lecture at the "Słońce" cinema, which had the largest auditorium in the capital of Greater Poland. Hlond was present at the lecture.
At the behest of Cardinal Hlond, Posadzy went to Bad Godesberg, in Germany, where in 1927, Bishop Franz Xaver Geyer founded a congregation for German migrants: "Gemeinschaft von den heiligen Engeln". Then Posadzy went to Italy to learn about the Scalabrinian order founded by Bishop Giovanni Scalabrini for the pastoral care of the Italian migrants. By the end of March 1932, Posadzy returned to Poznań. After returning to Poland, Posadzy continued to promote the new order by giving lectures and writing articles for the press.
On August 22, 1932, Hlond gave his blessing for Posadzy to begin the work of organizing the new order in earnest. Along with this blessing, the Cardinal gave Posadzy final instructions and a few fatherly words of encouragement saying:

So we begin In Nomine Domini. Let us trust God - He will surely help us.

The next day, August 23, Posadzy travelled to Potulice, where Countess Aniela Potulicka had donated her mansion and surrounding grounds to serve as the mother house of the new order, the Society of Christ.

Potulice

A few days after Posadzy had arrived in Potulice, 20 candidates for the priesthood and 16 aspirants for religious brothers arrived. On October 15, 1932, the canonical novitiate began in Potulice.
On November 4, 1932, Posadzy enthroned the Sacred Heart of Jesus in the novitiate. Devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus was a central part of Posadzy's upbringing. In the main room of his family home was a large statue of the Sacred Heart of Jesus. The whole family often prayed at the foot of the statue. It was with his background that Posadzy, from the very beginning of the Society, emphasized the devotion to the Sacred Heart of Jesus for all members of the Society of Christ. Life in Potulice was marked by intensive spiritual and pastoral activity, in which Posadzy played a leading role. Posadzy followed the directives given to him by Hlond. Posadzy also sought the help and advise of the nearby Pallottine priests in Suchary, as well as the number of priests like Aleksander Żychliński.
Posadzy became friends with Maximilian Kolbe. Inspired by Kolbe's Niepokalanów, Posadzy established a publishing house, a printing house and a number of mechanical and craft workshops in Potulice. The Society began issuing the following magazines: "Głos Seminarium Zagranicznego", "Msza Święta", "Cześć Świętych Polskich". Many books were published by the Society's prewar publishing house, based in Potulice. Members of the Society distributed the Society's publications all over Poland to promote the Society's mission and charism.
While establishing the Society's operations in Poland, Posadzy also maintained contact with Polish communities abroad and travelled to them regularly. As such, Posadzy maintained contact with Polish communities around the world. In the years prior to World War II, Posadzy travelled to various Polish communities around the world. In 1937, he travelled to the Far East to attended the 33rd International Eucharistic Congress in Manila. On the way to the Congress, he travelled through India, where he was hosted by Mahatma Gandhi. During their meeting, the two held a philosophical-religious discussion regarding Truth. This discussion was documented in Posadzy's book, Przez Tajemniczy Wschód. Returning from the Philippines, Posadzy returned to Poland travelling through China, Japan, Korea, Manchukuo and the Soviet Union.
At the end of June 1939, Posadzy travelled to Denmark for the Polish Youth Congress and to Metz, where the Catholic Congress of Poles from eastern France was being held. After the Congress, he toured Polish pastoral centres. While in Lyon, he made a pilgrimage to the Basilica of the Sacred Heart of Paray-le-Monial. On his way back, he visited London, where religious brothers had been working for a year in the Polish Catholic mission.