“I thank God for the copy testimony of this faithful son of the Church, which did not hesitate even in times of persecution,” Pope Leo XIV wrote in his condolences telegram for the death of the Romanian cardinal Lucian Murealle.
In it text Sent to Mons. Cristian Dumitru Crişan, administrator of the Archbishop’s Church Major Greco-Catholic Romanian, and the members of the Synod of the Bishops of the Romanian Greco-Catholic Church, the Holy Father expresses its proximity to all who cry the departure of purple that “has been a father and guide.”
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Cardinal Lucian Mureşan, major archbishop of the Greco-Catholic Church in Romania and one of the most important witnesses suffered by the persecution of the communist regime that fell in 1989, died this Thursday, September 25 at 94.
Lucian Murealle was created Cardinal when he was already 80 in 2012, during the Pontificate of Benedict XVI. This type of Cardinal Creation, when the age has already been overcome to be a voter in an eventual conclave, is a pontifical recognition of the church service offered by those who receive it.
In his telegram, Pope Leo XIV recalled “with admiration the difficulties and humiliations that (Murealle) endured with value during the years of proof, when he continued serving Christ in the pastoral ministry, even at the risk of his own freedom.”
His priesthood characterized by evangelical patience and dedication, continued Leon, “revealed an unwavering love to Christ and the Church, illuminating generations of faithful.”
“I raise my prayer for the soul of this good and vigilant servant who, faithful to his motto, knew how to offer his life even in suffering, abandoning with confidence to the Heavenly Father.”
To conclude, Leo XIV expressed his confidence that, “accompanied by the martyrs and blessed of the Romanian Greco-Catholic Church, it is welcomed in the joy of the eternal kingdom. To those who attend the funeral rite and those who feel the pain for their death, I send them the apostolic blessing.”
Walter Sánchez Silva
I am husband since 2008. With my wife we have three children here and one who went to heaven in 2023, before birth. Since I joined ACI Press in 2005, I have had the opportunity to cover various events of the Catholic Church. Among them, the World Youth Days in Colonia, Madrid and Rio de Janeiro and the apostolic trips of Pope Benedict XVI to Mexico and Pope Francis to South Korea. I have been sent to the Vatican to cover the family’s synods, in 2015; of the Amazon, in 2019 and that of Sinodality, in 2023. I follow the situation of the Catholic Church in Nicaragua, which suffers the persecution of the dictatorship of Daniel Ortega, as well as the ecclesial news in the region.