In August 1991 guerrillas of the Shining Path terrorist group escalated their violence against the Catholic Church in Chimbote, Peru. The terrorists announced that they would kill a priest every week in the Diocese of Chimbote.
On August 9, two Conventual Franciscans, Friar Zbigniew Strzałkowski and Friar Michał Tomaszek were taken from a village church at the end of the evening Eucharistic celebration. After a brief ‘trial,’ they were led out of the village and killed.
On December 5, 2015, the Church officially recognized their sacrifice by proclaiming them Blessed.
On December 6, 2025, Pope Leo XIV released a message on the 10th anniversary of the beatification of Blessed Friars Michał Tomaszek and Zbigniew Strzałkowski, as well as diocesan priest Father Alessandro Dordi who was murdered on August 25, 1991.
The witness of the martyrs of Chimbote shows that life bears fruit to the extent to which one is open to God’s call. Michal was only thirty years old, and Zbigniew thirty-three; they had been exercising their ministry for just a few years, and yet in that youth, sometimes considered inexperienced or fragile, God once again reminded his Church that the fruitfulness of the mission does not depend on the length of the journey, but on the fidelity with which it is travelled. …
Friar Jaroslaw Wysoczanski, the only surviving member of the three-man Polish team that established the mission in the Diocese of Chimbote, was recently interviewed by OSV News. Friar Jaroslaw ministers currently in El Paso serving migrants and refugees along the border.
Very often, tired and exhausted by serving these people, I return in my thoughts to those first months and years we spent in Peru. I realized that what I am doing today is a deep and very close echo of what Michal, Zbigniew and I did together then. It was the pure Gospel then, and I feel it is the same Gospel leading me today.
Read the full interview at osvnews.com –
