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The 22-year-old was beatified as a “martyr to chastity,” six decades after she was murdered while resisting rape
(CNS photo/courtesy Romanian bishops’ conference)
By Jonathan Luxmoore • Catholic News Service • Posted September 25
Poland (CNS) — A 22-year-old Romanian peasant has taken a step closer to sainthood as a “martyr to chastity,” six decades after she was murdered while resisting rape during the communist-era repression of the Catholic Church
prefect of the Vatican Congregation for Saints’ Causes
said Veronica Antal’s fate was similar to that of persecuted Christians in ancient Rome
who had asked the same question: “Who will separate us from the love of God?”
was the first Romanian woman to be beatified and first Romanian layperson formally honored as a martyr from the time of communist rule
the oldest of four children in Romania’s Moldavia province
Antal was taught the faith by her grandmother
Each day Antal walked five miles to Mass in the nearest church at Halaucesti
she took vows of chastity as a Franciscan tertiary
Unable to become a nun because all religious orders had been suppressed by the communists
she created a prayer cell near her parents’ house
from where she visited the sick and needy and helped prepare children for confirmation
Antal stayed to sweep the church after a Mass
who stabbed her 42 times when she refused sex and left her to die in a cornfield
Although her grave at Halaucesti’s cemetery immediately became a place of pilgrimage
a beatification process was launched by the Conventual Franciscans only after the 1989 collapse of communist rule
using material secretly stored by Franciscan Father Anton Demeter
concelebrated by 350 priests and bishops from Romania
was attended by Antal’s brother and sister and former neighbors
which included a delegation from Romania’s predominant Orthodox Church
Cardinal Becciu said Antal had prayed for all persecution victims in her makeshift prayer cell and offered an example of “serenity and courage” to contemporary young people
“The communist regime claimed to eliminate God; (it) destroyed churches and formed young generations for atheism
but could not erase faith from the hearts of many families,” the cardinal said
“The beatification of this 22-year-old is a happy occasion to confirm the Catholic community’s mission in this country — to preserve and transmit the heritage of faith and attachment to human and spiritual values with new courage and missionary impetus.”
Beatification is one of the final steps toward sainthood
A miracle attributed to the intercession of Blessed Antal would be needed before she could be declared a saint
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In 2010, a charity founded by Anita Roddick honoured her memory with its work in Romania. Cahal Milmo reported from Iasi
How Ceausescu’s lost souls were given a new start in lifeIn 2010, a charity founded by Anita Roddick honoured her memory with its work in Romania. Cahal Milmo reported from Iasi
When British volunteers arrived at Orphanage One in Halaucesti 20 years ago
they were greeted with a scene of Dickensian squalor
Shaven-headed toddlers were tied to their urine-soaked beds by supervisors who patrolled the corridors with sticks up their sleeves ready to beat their charges
babies were not picked up; their bottles were pushed through the bars of their cots
Among the 44 infants in this barbarous “Casa de Copii”, or Children’s House, in a village deep in the impoverished northeast corner of Romania was a small
She had been surrendered at birth to Orphanage One by a mother whose alcoholic husband had abandoned her with her five other children; the woman was so poor she could not afford to feed the newest arrivals
Like thousands of Romanian women “encouraged” to bear at least five offspring under the erratic despotism of the country’s late Communist dictator, Nicolae Ceausescu
Roxana’s mother consigned her daughter to a state that systematically reduced the children it cared for to a loveless silence
it simply gives up and withdraws from the world that surrounds it
it is hard to reconcile the Roxana of today – a confident
with a liking for Enrique Iglesias and a proficiency at karate – with her diabolical beginning to life
emaciated waifs of 1990 have survived the horrors of the Halaucesti orphanages (among the worst in the country) and
The secret suffering of Ceausescu’s babies: read the report that sparked a 20-year story
this young woman whose life was once considered barely worth sustaining
will graduate from Romania’s oldest university with a degree in physiotherapy and a cabinet full of trophies testifying to her sporting prowess; she is a former Romanian national karate champion and a keen footballer
Such a transformation is due in large part to the work of Children on the Edge, the charity founded by Body Shop entrepreneur Dame Anita Roddick
and one of the three charities in this year’s Independent Christmas Appeal
Roddick was moved by the images of Romania’s orphanages that shot around the world in 1990 in the aftermath of the short
bloody revolution that ended the lives of Ceausescu and his equally-hated wife
Some 24,000 children remain in institutionalised care in Romania
and concern persists about the quality of care in some state-run homes
But today’s orphanages bear little relation to the satanic mills that by 1990 housed 160,000 minors as a result of Ceausescu’s malign pressure to produce a cheap workforce from children parents could not keep
joined the convoys of aid heading towards the former Eastern Bloc country
But while others stopped within a few hours of the capital, Bucharest
the Body Shop’s three lorries and 20 volunteers pressed further north to the district of Iasi
which even now remains Romania’s most impoverished region
the group asked to be directed to the neediest and most isolated orphanages
They were sent to Halaucesti and its three Casa de Copii
They have been helping the 600 children they found there
“They slept three to four in a bed and most of the bed linen was soiled and stained
In cots were babies some of them tied by bits of material to the bars
There was an overpowering smell of urine and sweat
probably because of the excrement that was smeared over walls and floors
“What was most noticeable and upsetting was that none of the children had individual care and attention
the staff hit them and many of them walked around with sticks up their sleeves
we picked the children out of the cots and hugged them
So void of love and affection were they that they didn’t know how to react.”
has little or no conscious memory of such grim days
But she does remember vividly enjoying the fruits of the efforts of Children on the Edge – which in Romania created an offshoot named Fundatia Cote
still funded by the UK charity – to improve life for the inhabitants of Halaucesti’s homes
Orphanage One was closed and its inhabitants moved to a new residence that had been divided into small family units
Then visits were started by Cote workers to enable siblings in other orphanages to see one another during summer camps
a year older than her and who remained at the Halaucesti complex
were a source of joy and lingering sadness
She said: “I had a big desire to be with him
Other children would visit their brothers and sisters
but because he genuinely didn’t want to see me
I think maybe I reminded him he had a family who didn’t want him.”
Children on the Edge has pursued a strategy of seeking to reverse the damage caused by the Ceausescu-era orphanages
which were deliberately sited in isolated rural villages to conceal the “shame” of their existence and that of their inhabitants
Without continued support to become independent
there is the risk they could fall victims of trafficking or get into crime
back into the society which had rejected them
the charity concentrates on helping teenagers as they leave care
Roxana and her fellow inhabitants in the Pascani home
became the first “orphans” (it is a particular cruelty of the Ceausescu era that very few of this generation of lost children were actually parentless) to be put into mainstream schools
rather than educated within the walls of an institution
Roxana remembers her school days with a shudder
The playground would echo with cries of “Casa de Copii” as her classmates mercilessly targeted the new arrivals
She said: “I started school when I was six
They would shout these taunts and beat us and trip us up
They would go on about how we had nobody to protect us
the sense of stigma at being a “Casa de Copii” persists
Many of the orphans are reluctant to reveal their status to those brought up in families for fear of being judged inferior
Roxana bears no resentment to those responsible for her distorted upbringing
the carers who struck her with a ruler if she failed to do her homework to the required standard
and the mother who gave her away to the unfeeling state
of Children on the Edge orphans went to university
With an emotional maturity beyond her years
Roxana has in her own way laid to rest the demons of her childhood
Recalling the first time she met her mother at the age of 10
she said: “She was still very poor and the social worker at the home gave her some money to take me out to buy me a cake
I was happy because someone was buying me a sweet
“I didn’t have strong feelings about my mother
As far as I was concerned it was not my mother
I would get upset at how I was suffering so much
Why me?’ I would put the guilt on my parents
She explained about the poverty and my alcoholic father
But when I saw how much she was suffering by talking about it
I resolved to never ask her about it again
The process of normalisation led by Cote continued when Roxana and her comrades from Halaucesti were moved as teenagers to apartments bought on behalf of the charity in the city of Iasi
staying in groups of six with a foster mother or “mama sociale” to supervise them while they attended secondary school and became part of an established neighbourhood
I was determined that no one should know about my background
the social worker introduced me to the class as a ‘Casa de Copii’
My hopes were dashed but actually it was a new start
The system of living in supervised apartments has become the cornerstone of the charity’s work as the children of the orphanages enter adulthood
Roxana recalls her flatmates throwing adolescent tantrums but there is no doubting that the scheme has been a success: some 25 per cent of these once tempestuous and damaged children have gone on to do university degrees
said: “Our greatest need now is to see the orphans into adulthood
there is the risk they could fall victims of trafficking or get into crime.”
Halaucesti was finally emptied and bulldozed flat in 2006 and for Roxana
As well as planning a career in sports coaching
she is beginning to overcome her long-held reticence about revealing the nature of her childhood to university friends
and works as a volunteer with children in care
she says: “I can understand their needs and worries much better than someone else who hasn’t been in care
“They will be hugged and kissed like no other children
I have worked hard to make sure that what happened to me
This article first appeared in The Independent on 11 December 2010
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+ What little we know of Saint Bartholomew comes to us from the Gospel of John and he is commonly identified with Nathaniel (1:45-51), a “man without guile” from Cana, where Jesus performed his first miracle.
+ According to tradition, following Pentecost, Bartholomew preached the Gospel in India and in Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). According to the Church historian Eusebius of Caesarea, Saint Pantaenus traveled to India in the third century and found a small group of believers and was shown a Hebrew copy of the Gospel of Matthew that was said to have been left there by Bartholomew.
+ Ancient tradition also tells us that Bartholomew was martyred in Armenia by being flayed alive and his supposed relics are kept in the Church of Saint Bartholomew on an island in the Tiber River in Rome.
+ Saint Bartholomew is honored as the patron saint of Armenia and of those suffering from neurological diseases. Because of the horrific way in which he died, he also remembered as the leather workers, book binders, and is invoked by those suffering from skin diseases.
“It was clear through unlearned men that the cross was persuasive, in fact, it persuaded the whole world. Their discourse was not of unimportant matters but of God and true religion, of the Gospel way of life and future judgment, yet it turned plain, uneducated men into philosophers. How the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and his weakness stronger than men!.”—Saint John Chrysostom
Saint profiles prepared by Brother Silas Henderson, S.D.S.
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