The Fatima Crusader mourns the loss of a friend

Priest Tortured and Murdered in Siberia

by John Vennari

Father Jan Frackiewicz, (pictured above, on the right) a friend of The Fatima Crusader, was found beaten to death in Russia's Siberian region. His body, which bore signs of torture, was discovered on April 15, Easter Sunday, at a parish house in Yartsevo.

Police officials reported that Father Frackiewicz, a Melkite priest serving in Siberia, died of massive trauma to the head, including a broken skull, after being beaten with a metal bar. He was found tied to a bed in an apartment adjoining a chapel where he served.

Catholic World News reports that while visiting Yartsevo, located about 3400 kilometers east of Moscow, the priest usually stayed in an apartment attached to the chapel there. It was in this apartment that he was killed.

Various sources, including the Polish Press Agency, allege robbery as the motive, because "a valuable crucifix and money had disappeared from the parish house." A local convict, previously released from jail, was arrested as a suspect. To date, there are no reports of developments in solving the case.

Born in 1924 in Poland, Jan Frackiewicz was ordained to the priesthood of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church in Lebanon in 1986. Previously he had a long career in Polish academia, specializing in management and economics.

In 1993, the Melkite Archbishop of Beirut sent him to work in Siberia, were he served 13 religious communities along a 1,200-mile stretch of the Yenisei River. The vast region is populated with many Eastern Catholics whose parents and grandparents were exiled from Ukraine to this area by Soviet authorities.

Father Frackiewicz was a friend of The Fatima Crusader. In 1999, he attended the Apostolate's Fatima Peace Conference held in Hamilton, Ontario, and sent a letter of congratulations for the Conference afterwards. He also requested Rosaries and Scapulars from the Apostolate. The Melkite priest later told a representative of the Fatima Center that he was delighted to obtain these items for his people, that he had "the largest parish in the world" and that he worked it alone.

Also, following the Conference, he requested from the Fatima Center a copy of pre-Vatican II liturgical readings. This was prompted by discussions that took place at the Conference about the New Mass.

Father Frackiewicz's Dramatic Testimony

A private evening session was scheduled during the 1999 Peace Conference wherein bishops and priests attending were invited to ask questions and offer comments. It was here that Father Jan Frackiewicz stepped to the microphone and delivered his unique perspective about the present state of the Church and the need to obey the Fatima Message.

Speaking in severely broken-English, but with great passion, Father Frackiewicz asked "Is there a need to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary?"

He answered his own question, "I am from Russia and I can answer not yes, but yes, yes, yes!" He declared it "urgent and necessary" to consecrate Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary "to save the peace of the world and of many nations." Respectfully, he said he did not know why Pope John Paul II has not consecrated Russia, and speculated that either "there are some hesitations of the Pope or he has been misled."

He also noted that Vatican II "is used by certain people, not accidentally, to undermine the Church's teaching and unity."

Speaking from personal experience, he related a case in Lebanon in 1989 that he described as "a shock for me." It was, in his opinion, symptomatic of a deep malaise within the present-day Church.

Father Frackiewicz, who lived in Lebanon at the time, said that in 1989 those whom he called the "rulers of the world" and the "servants of satan" decided "to destroy the independence of Lebanon.

"Christians in this country were very strong," he said, "and as such, were not agreeable to the rulers of the world." There was a parliamentary move to elect a President who would "conform to the desires of Syria." However, the "legal Chief of State dissolved this parliament," which, according to the Constitution, nullified the election.

Within one week of dissolving this parliament, however, the deputies gathered at an air base and "elected a President according to the desire of Syria."

The Security Council of the United Nations, he said, decided that the new President "is a legal president" despite that, according to the Constitution, the parliament that elected him had been dissolved by the Head of State.

"What was the reaction of the Vatican?" lamented Father Frackiewicz, "After some hesitation they changed the Apostolic Nuncio." They replaced Archbishop Angeloni with a new Nuncio, "Pablo Puente, who was amicable to the rulers of the world". Instantly, said Father Frackiewicz, the Nuncio recognized the new government as legal.

This was "a scandal for Christians in Lebanon" he said, as well as a "scandal for the Vatican." Lebanese Christians were so outraged, they started to claim "the Pope was either Jewish or a Mason." The Muslims were also upset and publicly threatened to kill the Pope if he traveled to Lebanon.

Father Frackiewicz, in an attempt to save the Vatican's reputation, personally traveled to the Vatican with documents from the Lebanese Heads of State. These documents demonstrated, he maintained, that the new president and government of Lebanon were illegal. "I gave it personally into the hands of the Pope."

According to Father Frackiewicz, the prelate ultimately responsible for the "bad decision" regarding Lebanon was the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Casaroli.

"I asked the Pope to change the false decision of the Secretary of State" said Father Frackiewicz. The Pope responded, "we are doing all that is possible."

The priest even delivered his documentation to the office of the Secretary of State, but the policy regarding Lebanon did not change.

"After the Synod of Lebanese Bishops," Father Frackiewicz explained, "the Pope declared that Lebanon has the right to be free and independent, and that the foreign occupying forces (from Israel and Syria) should leave the country." But even after this, the Secretary of State has neither said nor done "anything to conform with the desire of the Pope."

Moving to another topic, Father Frackiewicz claimed to have documentation on certain Cardinals and Archbishops in Poland who were "collaborating with Freemasons" and that another Archbishop in Poland was "promoting the New Age as a good movement."

When you combine all this, Father Frackiewicz concluded, with the persecutions of Father Gruner, it points to the fact that "there is something wrong inside the Vatican and inside the Church", and the Church today is suffering from the "penetration of the rulers of the world."

The Fatima Crusader mourns the loss of a friend, brutally slain. It asks its supporters to remember this good priest in their prayers, Masses and Rosaries.

Eternal rest grant unto him O Lord.

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