Oldest active cardinal, Stalin prison survivor, retires at 91
Jun 15, 2006
Cardinal Kazimierz Swiatek has resigned as Archbishop of Minsk in Belarus, at the age of 91.
Jun. 14 (CWNews.com) - A bland Vatican statement on June 14 announced that Cardinal Swiatek had resigned "upon having reached the age limit." But actually the Belarusian prelate was already beyond the ordinary retirement age of 75 when he was appointed by Pope John Paul II to become Archbishop of Minsk in 1991. His resignation came just four months short of his 92nd birthday.
A survivor of brutal Stalinist persecution, Cardinal Swiatek had been by far the oldest cardinal still actively heading an archdiocese. (Six other retired cardinals are older, led by the Dutch Cardinal Johannes Willebrands, who will be 97 in September.)
In 1993, when he raised the Belarusian prelate to the College of Cardinals, Pope John Paul said that he wanted to pay tribute to the "Church of martyrs" that Cardinal Swiatek represented. Cardinal Swiatek spent years in Soviet prison camps, including a mine at Vorkuta, inside the arctic circle, and a work camp in Siberia. "For ten years, I was completely isolated from the world's realities," he later remarked. The Soviet-era persecution of the church was "truly Satanic," the cardinal said. And he added that the Western world, while aware of the suffering of Christians, did not intervene to help them.
Pope Benedict XVI has named Bishop Antoni Dziemianko as apostolic administator of the Minsk archdiocese, replacing the retiring cardinal.
Oldest active cardinal, Stalin prison survivor, retires at 91