Vatican, (IKA) – During a private audience with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, Pope Benedict XVI authorized the Congregation to promulgate decrees on the miracles, martyrdoms and heroic virtues of a number of servants of God. One of these decrees recognizes the martyrdom of the Rev. Miroslav Bulešić, a priest of the Poreč and Pula Diocese, as the decree states, in “odium fidei,” i.e., in hatred of the faith.
Miroslav Bulešić was killed on August 23, 1947, in the parish office in Lanišće by unruly communists who forcibly tried to prevent the administration of the Sacrament of Confirmation.
News of the murder of the Rev. Bulešić, which spread quickly throughout Istria, frightened the people, especially priests, who had already been subjected to attacks and persecutions by the fascists, and now by the communists. At the same time, popular belief spread that Fr. Miro had been tortured, which could be inferred from entries in his journal, although it was forbidden to speak about this.
In 1956, the Apostolic Administrator of the Poreč and Pula Diocese and the Croatian part of the Kopar Diocese, Bishop Dragutin Nežič, initiated the diocesan process for the beatification of the Rev. Miroslav Bulešić, which was formally concluded in September 2004. Bishop Ivan Milovan submitted the official material to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, which studied the case for eight years.