Pope pays tribute to martyred cardinal who saved thousands of Jews during Holocaust

The Catholic Herald• June 3, 2025

Pope Leo has paid tribute to a martyred cardinal who saved the lives of thousands of Jews during the Holocaust.

The life of Blessed Iuliu Hossu, a Greek-Catholic cardinal who oversaw the diocese of Cluj-Gherla and who was eventually martyred during the Romanian communist persecution, was commemorated at an event in the Sistine Chapel.

Besides saving Jewish lives, Blessed Iuliu opposed the forced passage of Greek Catholics to the Romanian Orthodox Church. He was eventually arrested in 1948 for his opposition to the communist government.

He once refused a position offered to him by both government and Orthodox leadership as Orthodox metropolitan of Moldavia in exchange for renouncing the Catholic Church. He was held in forced domicile at a monastery, and in 1969 he was named cardinal in pectore, or to be kept a secret, by Pope St Paul VI. He died in forced domicile in 1970.

Blessed Iuliu was beatified by Pope Francis June 2, 2019, in Blaj along with six other Romanian Greek-Catholic bishops recognised as martyrs for having been killed “in hatred of the faith.” In 2022, a process began to award him the title, “Righteous Among the Nations”.

To commemorate his beatification, as part of a broader year dedicated to his memory which has been organised by the Romanian Parliament, two separate events were held in Rome.

On Sunday, June 1, Mass was celebrated in Romanian at the Altar of the Chair in St Peter’s Basilica by Bishop Claudiu-Lucian Pop, Greek Catholic eparchial bishop of Cluj-Gherla, along with Italian Cardinal Claudio Gugerotti, prefect of the Vatican’s Dicastery for Eastern Churches, and Archbishop Giampiero Gloder, Vatican nuncio to Romania and Moldova.

The June 2 celebration paying homage to Blessed Iuliu was attended by Pope Leo XIV, as well as various other ecclesiastical and political representatives, and specifically emphasized his efforts on behalf of the Jewish community.

In addition to Pope Leo, a speech was also given by Silviu Vexler, a Romanian politician and president of the Federation of Jewish Communities of Romania, and a message was read aloud on behalf of Cardinal Lucian Muresan, major archbishop of the Greek-Catholic Church of Romania.

Monday’s ceremony took place against the backdrop of fresh condemnation from the international community of a new Israeli military offensive in Gaza and after several papal appeals for peace.

Pope Leo XIV in his speech on Monday called Blessed Iuliu “a symbol of fraternity transcending all ethnic and religious boundaries”.

He hailed his “courageous” commitment to supporting and saving Jews from Transylvania between 1940-1944 when the Nazis were deporting them to concentration camps.

“At enormous risk to himself and to the Greek-Catholic Church, Blessed Hossu undertook extensive activities on behalf of the Jews aimed at preventing their deportation,” the Pope said.

Blessed Iuliu, he said, was an impressive pastor who offered hope to countless people as “a man of faith, who knows that the gates of evil will not prevail against God’s work”.

“His life was a witness of faith lived to the full, in prayer and devotion to others,” Leo said, calling him “a man of dialogue and a prophet of hope”.

His example illustrated “an unshakeable faith in God, devoid of hatred and coupled with a spirit of mercy that turns suffering into love for one’s persecutor”, the Pope said.

“Even now, those words remain as a prophetic invitation to overcome hatred through forgiveness and to live one’s faith with dignity and courage,” Leo said, adding, “the Church is close to the sufferings of the Jewish people, which culminated in the tragedy of the Holocaust. She knows well what pain, marginalisation, and persecution mean.

For this reason, he said, the Church is committed “as a matter of conscience” to building a society that is centered on respect for human dignity.

Calling the cardinal’s actions “most timely”, the Pope said that what he did for the Jews of Romania, at the risk of his own life, makes him “a model of freedom, courage and generosity, even to the point of making the supreme sacrifice”.

Leo voiced hope that his example, which came several years before the Second Vatican Council’s 1965 Declaration Nostra Aetate redefining the Church’s relationship with the Jewish community, and the 60th anniversary of which will take place in October, “will serve as a beacon for today’s world”.

Leo closed his speech by saying: “Let us say ‘No!’ to violence in all its forms, and even more so when it is perpetrated against those who are defenceless and vulnerable, like children and families.”

(Photo by FILIPPO MONTEFORTE/AFP via Getty Images)