Brazil - Second oldest Salesian in the Congregation celebrates 75 years of priesthood: Fr Klinick

15 February 2018
Brazil - Second oldest Salesian in the Congregation celebrates 75 years of priesthood: Fr Klinick

(ANS - São Paulo) - On the evening of 8 February, in the parish of "Santa Teresinha" in São Paulo, Brazil, a mass was celebrated to thank God for the 75 years of priestly ordination of Fr Wladislaw (Ladislao) Klinicki. He was born in Poland on June 1, 1914, to Karol Klinicki and Katarzyna Kitlinska. Little is known of his childhood, except that his father was a railwayman and his mother a public employee, and that he had 4 siblings: Boleslau, Maria, Stella and Francesco.

During World War II, Fr Ladislau was imprisoned in a Nazi concentration camps for 5 years. When he arrived in Brazil, he worked as a chaplain at the "Buen Retiro" center in Lavrinhas. He was a confessor and teacher of English among the aspirants. He then spent a year in Americana as a parochial vicar, followed by 10 years at Pindamonhangaba, and then he returned to Lavrinhas. Since 1990 he has been living in the community of "Santa Teresinha."

The pastoral and missionary actions of Fr. Ladislau are evident in the ministry of confessions. His brothers say of him: "He is a priest who is precise in his words, concise in his expressions. He supplicates whoever approaches the Confession to walk on the right path and to pour into the soul of the penitents the balm of forgiveness and divine mercy."

Phrases like "Jesus, I trust in You", "I will save you even when you judge that everything is already lost", words of Saint Faustina Kowalska, are part of his personal vocabulary and of his daily life.

When he turned 100, in 2014, he wrote: "Thanks to Divine Mercy, I turn 100 years old and I think it's already a lot. Let me be a part of those called to the third age of man. Third and last, because the Holy Scriptures say: the years of our life are seventy, eighty for the most robust, but almost all are fatigue, pain; they pass soon and we vanish." Fr Ladislau is now 103 years old and is judged to be the second oldest living Salesian.

The Eucharistic celebration of thanksgiving was presided over by Msgr. Fernando Legal, bishop emeritus of San Miguel Paulista. Among the participants: Msgr. Carlos Altieri, archbishop emeritus of Passo Fundo, Fr Justo Piccinini, Provincial of Brazil-São Paulo, and Fr Douglas Verdi, Director of the "Santa Teresinha" Salesian community.

After the celebration, all received a medal of Merciful Jesus and a copy of the book written by Fr Ladislau in which the experiences of the war are told.

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