Born in Kursk, in the former Soviet Union, in 1914, to a Polish family, he was the son of Karol Klinicki and Katarzyna Kitlinska. His father was a railroad worker and his mother a civil servant and he had four other siblings. He made his first profession in 1934 in Czerwinsk, his perpetual profession in 1939 in Rozanystok, and was ordained a priest in Warsaw in 1943.
During World War II, he was taken prisoner and went through three Nazi concentration camps. "The greatest spiritual help for us was trust in Divine Mercy and prayer," Fr Klinicki wrote in his memoir "One Step from Death."
After the war, he was part of the large number of Polish Salesian missionaries who left for America. He reached the United States, went to Ecuador, and finally, in 1968, was destined for Brazil, to accompany the Polish immigrants of the Bom Retiro district, in São Paulo. He then worked in the aspirantate of Lavrinhas, in Cruzeiro, and Pindamonhangaba. He was the confessor of many generations of Salesians and for several years he joined the community for elderly and sick Salesians of "Santa Terezinha".
In 2020 he received the St. Paul the Apostle medal in the category of priestly service, in recognition of his commitment to stimulating and energizing the ecclesial and pastoral life of the Archdiocese of St. Paul.
"Father Ladislau was a saint!," the Salesians of the Province of St. Paul say today. "He was a strong and humble man with a good heart, and he was known for the candy he distributed to children and adults! He authored books that narrated his experiences in the concentration camps and prepared catechetical aids that he offered to Salesians and lay people. His room was frequented by a multitude of little birds that fed on fruit and seeds that they received from his own hands. Very devoted to Divine Mercy, he was a great apostle of this devotion so dear to the Polish people."
"We thank God for the shower of graces He has bestowed upon us in this brother and priest of ours. May his passage to God bring an appeal of peace to the world, especially to the Slavic peoples, so dear to him, having been born on Russian soil, to a Polish family. May God make him happy and may he pray for us all," conclude the Salesians of St. Paul.
