Romania: Diocese of Iasi, canonization cause for Fr Matei, shot by Communist regime. Fr Moraru to SIR, “holiness lived in charity”

The Romanian priest Dumitru Matei, killed in hatred of the faith in Romania by the communists and dumped into a mass grave, becomes a candidate for the honours of the altar. The diocesan phase of his cause of beatification and canonization will begin on Sunday, 30 January, with a Mass presided over by Mgr. Iosif Păuleț, Bishop of the Diocese of Iași, at the Roman Catholic Cathedral of Our Lady Queen of Iași. On 16 December 2021, the Congregation for the Causes of Saints authorised the investigations into the martyrdom of the Servant of God Fr Dumitru Matei. Dumitru Matei was born on 28 July 1913 in a village in the Romanian province of Bacău, eastern Romania. In 1939, he was ordained a priest in Iași where he carried out his ministry. In 1948, he was appointed by his Bishop to take care of the poor; he would distribute the aid received from abroad and help the hungry, war prisoners, and the Jews. While he was supporting the unarmed anti-communist resistance, he was arrested by the “Securitate” in May 1950. After spending a few months in the Jilava prison, he was tried and sentenced to death for “espionage and high treason”. He was shot dead on 21 February 1951. His body was dumped into a mass grave in jail. “His fame of holiness spread above all in his village and also in Iasi, where he was very well known and from which we received so many testimonies about his holiness lived above all in charity”, Fr Alois Moraru, historian and diocesan postulator for the canonization cause of Fr. Dumitru Matei, told SIR news agency.
Valentina Bombelli