hungary
“Whoever lives according to the will and pleasure of God, is blessed! Beatitude is the realization of God’s will”, wrote Sister Sára Salkaházi of the Society of the Social Sisters 70 years ago in her diary on 30 August 1936. She was beatified on Sunday 17 September 2006, just on the day on which Sister Sára took the first steps on the road of her vocation 78 years ago. The ceremony of beatification was officiated, on behalf of Benedict XVI, by Cardinal Péter Erdo, Primate of Hungary, Archbishop of Esztergom-Budapest and President of the Hungarian Bishops’ Conference. At the end of the liturgy József Schweitzer, former chief rabbi of Hungary, praised the new Blessed, who chose martyrdom to save the life of persecuted Jews. Sára Salkaházi (born Sarolta Klotild Schalkház) was born in what is now Slovakia, at Kassa (now Kosice), on 11 May 1899. After completing her primary education, she worked as a manual worker and shop assistant. Later she became a journalist and writer. In 1929 she entered the Society of the Social Sisters, a religious congregation founded in Hungary by Margit Slachta in 1923. She professed her solemn vows in 1940. She organized charitable activities and catechesis, gave talks, founded associations for girls, and edited the Catholic magazine “The Catholic Woman”. Her activity extended to the territories of what are now Hungary, Slovakia, Ukraine and Romania. “She combated the fascist ideology with her skills as a writer – reports the Hungarian Catholic press agency Magyar Kurír -. During World War II, the Society of the Social Sisters gave refuge in its homes to the persecuted, saving roughly a thousand people, of whom approximately one hundred owe their lives to Sister Sára. Conscious of the imminent danger, on 14 September 1943 she asked her superiors for permission to offer the sacrifice of her own life. Her offer was fulfilled on 27 December 1944: Suor Sára hid a group of persecuted people in the women’s hostel at n° 3, Bokréta Street, in Budapest. After her activities were denounced, Sister Sára was taken away by the fascists and shot together with the catechist Vilma Bernovits and other victims of persecution.
