SHELTON—Redemptus Maria Valabek believed there were saints among ordinary men and women…and he spent his life looking for them.
A Carmelite priest, Father Valabek grew up in Shelton and later became the postulator general of his religious order, responsible for researching candidates for sainthood and directing their causes through the Vatican.
“He took his job very seriously, and it was his goal to find examples of people living ordinary everyday lives who were saints that could inspire the average person to be good and follow Christ,” said his niece Theresa Waldron, a parishioner of St. Margaret Mary Alacoque Church in Shelton.
One of the causes he oversaw was that of St. Titus Brandsma, a Carmelite friar who was martyred by the Nazis in the Dachau concentration camp in 1942 and canonized by Pope Francis on May 15.
Father Brandsma grew up on his family’s dairy farm in the Netherlands. As a young man, he felt called to the religious life so he joined the Carmelite monastery. As much as he was drawn to contemplative prayer and education, he also felt a calling to the worldly profession of journalism.
It was his faith and his love of journalism that motivated him to take a stand against the Nazis in the years leading up to World War II, when he criticized them in the harshest terms. “The Nazi movement is a black lie,” he once wrote. “It is pagan.”
Ultimately, it was his courage in resisting the Nazis that led to his imprisonment and martyrdom.
One of the foremost authorities on St. Titus Brandsma was Father Valabek. Born and raised in Shelton, he was Postulator General of the Causes of Saints from 1981 to 1995, during which time he researched Carmelites who were considered candidates for beatification and canonization.
He died at 69 on August 5, 2003 as a result of injuries he sustained in a car accident in New York. However, he was blessed to attend the beatification of Father Brandsma by Pope John Paul II in 1985, along with his niece Theresa.
“He was a brilliant man who spoke more than ten languages,” said Waldron, who is Director of Resident Lifestyle at Benchmark Senior Living in Shelton. “He was a good person down to the core and definitely a father figure to me growing up.”
His office, which overlooked St. Peter’s Square, was only a ten-minute walk to the Vatican, where he often heard confessions at St. Peter’s Basilica, she said.
“He was also instrumental in starting the Third Order of Carmelites at St. Lawrence and other Third Order Carmelite communities around the world,” she said. “He was just such a great man and so pious. He read his devotions every morning and said Mass every day.”
In a tribute to Father Valabek, Tom Zeitvogel, T.O. Carm., described him as “a Carmelite friar who has endeared himself to the hearts of a multitude of Lay Carmelites throughout the world.” Zeitvogel saved some 55 letters from Father Valabek, and over the years, he encountered him on many retreats, which he regularly conducted for Lay Carmelites.
Father was also known for his love of the Boston Red Sox.
“The only time I ever saw him get upset was when he was watching a game, and he got so wound up,” Waldron recalled. “He loved the Red Sox. Before he died, I was talking to him, and I said, ‘Hopefully the Red Sox will win the series.’ And I said something like, ‘Pray for them. Let’s give it two years.’ They won after he died.”
When her daughter was born, she was named Francesca in honor of her great-uncle, whose birth name was Frank, Waldron said.
Father Valabek was born in Shelton on July 3, 1934 to Frank and Anna Valabek and graduated from St. Joseph School. His father was from Slovakia and his mother from the Czech Republic. While his sister Ann attended Shelton High School, he went to St. Albert’s Junior Seminary in Middletown, N.Y. In 1953, he entered the Carmelite novitiate in Williamstown, Mass., and was ordained to the priesthood on July 25, 1960.
He spent 40 years of his Carmelite ministry in Rome in various positions, including Master of Students and head of the Theology and Spiritual Section at the College of St. Albert, Dean of Regina Munda College, and editor of the magazine “Carmel in the World.” He was the author of six books, several about St. Titus Brandsma.
Father Valabek taught in Rome at the Collegio San Alberto and returned to the United States every summer, traveling, preaching and raising money for the Carmelite missions. He frequently visited Father Philip Brady, then-pastor of St. Margaret Mary Church, and occasionally filled in.
Being the Postulator General of the Carmelites, his job was to promote causes for beatification and canonization.
“I shall never forget the many times he would share with me the stories of the lives of Carmelite laity in the far-flung regions of the world who lived even hundreds of years ago. But how baffled he was that so many of them have not yet been officially canonized,” Zeitvogel wrote. “In the same conversation, he would always marvel at the heroic holiness being lived out by many Lay Carmelites today.”
Father Valabek, who was 8 years old when St.Titus Brandsma was martyred, was very proud when the Carmelite friar was beatified, Waldron said. “He always wanted to share the story about the concentration camp.”
Pope John Paul II beatified him on November 3, 1985 as a martyr for the faith and said his optimism “accompanied him even in the hell of the Nazi camp—until the end he remained a source of support and hope for other prisoners.”
St. Titus was recently canonized along with several other blesseds after the Vatican confirmed miracles that were caused through their intercession. He offers a model for our era about the importance of speaking the truth and upholding our faith in the face of tyranny.
Ordained in 1905 in Rome, Father Titus returned to the Netherlands to work in Catholic education and taught philosophy to Carmelites in formation and later at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. The bishop of Utrecht appointed him spiritual adviser of 30 Catholic newspapers. And as Adolf Hitler consolidated his power in Germany, Father Titus criticized the Nazis in his columns and lectures.
After the Nazis invaded the Netherlands on May 10, 1940, Father Titus resisted their pressure to use Catholic newspapers and education to spread propaganda. He also defended the Jewish people, including Jewish children who attended Catholic schools, and said, “the Church in carrying out her mission makes no distinction between sex, race or people.”
He argued his case but was unsuccessful in dissuading the Nazis. The Gestapo trailed him as he visited editors throughout the Netherlands, telling them to resist the pressure to run Nazi advertisements and articles.
When he was arrested in 1942, he told the detaining officer, “Imagine my going to jail at the age of 60.”
He was asked why he disobeyed the state regulations and responded, “As a Catholic, I could have done nothing differently.” He later wrote, “If it is necessary, we, the Dutch people, will give our lives for our religion.”
Eventually, Father Titus was transferred to the German concentration camp in Dachau, where he was kept under close watch. On many occasions, he secretly blessed prisoners, heard confessions and led the Stations of the Cross in violation of the explicit orders of the Nazis.
His biographer, Father Boniface Hanley, O.F.M., wrote: “From the moment Titus entered the camp, his calmness and gentleness infuriated his captors. They beat him mercilessly with fists, clubs and boards. They kicked, punched and gouged him, drawing blood and oftentimes leaving him nearly unconscious in the mud.”
When he was admitted to the infirmary on July 26, 1942, a nurse gave him a lethal injection. Later testifying about him for his cause for sainthood, she vividly recalled the face of the priest, “who had compassion on me” and gave her his rosary.
She said, “He told me that if I were to pray a lot, I would not be lost,” and that he would pray for her.
By Joe Pisani