Loading...
Loading...
Click here if you don’t see subscription options
James Martin, S.J.March 21, 2012

In the category of "a picture speaks a thousand words," comes this rare photo of Fr. Walter Ciszek, SJ, the U.S. Jesuit whose canonization process has been given the green light by the Vatican. (See post below).  The provenance?  Someone sent it to me last year, but I've completely forgotten who it was.  (My bad memory seems to remember it's either from a Jesuit Province archivist or a Catholic publisher.)  Apparently, it was snapped by his Soviet captors around 1941.  It is either from Lubianka prison or from the Soviet labor camps.  Update: A Russian-speaking friend translated the Russian: "This is a list of his special features and peculiarities: Stutters, bites nails, makes gestures...and his signature."

Comments are automatically closed two weeks after an article's initial publication. See our comments policy for more.
Carolyn Disco
13 years 4 months ago
Haunting. And still he smiles.

The latest from america

Pope Leo said that if the teen “had come all the way to Rome, then (the pope) could come all the way to the hospital to see him.”
A Reflection for Tuesday of the Eighteenth Week in Ordinary Time, by Molly Cahill
Molly CahillAugust 04, 2025
As emergency workers searched for survivors and tried to recuperate the bodies of the dead, Pope Leo XIV offered his prayers for people impacted by the latest shipwreck of a migrant boat off the coast of Yemen.
Catholic News ServiceAugust 04, 2025
The Archdiocese of Miami celebrated the first Mass for detainees at “Alligator Alcatraz,” the Trump administration’s controversial immigrant detention center in the Florida Everglades.