Detroit— The humble priest Msgr. Walter Ziemba remembers from a visit to the Orchard Lake campus in the late 1960s could be on his way to canonization.

Fr. Walter J. Ciszek, SJ, (1904-84), a graduate of St. Mary’s Preparatory and St. Mary’s College, spent two decades in the prisons and forced-labor camps of the Soviet Union until the United States secured his release in 1963 in exchange for two convicted Soviet spies.

With the diocesan inquiry into his reputation for sanctity concluded, materials and documentation supporting his canonization cause were recently sent toRome.

Fr. Ciszek (pronounced Chee-shek) visited the Orchard Lake campus once in the 1960s, and Msgr. Ziemba remembers him as “very humble, very self-effacing, and devoted to the will of God.”

The priest who had experienced the cruelty and deprivations of life in the gulags of StalinistRussiawas “a very mild man, a very kind man,” he continued.

“There was a certain air of sanctity about him. Kindness just resplendently poured out of him — he even looked like a teddy bear,” said Msgr. Ziemba, a retired member of theOrchardLakefaculty and administration.

Msgr. Frank Koper, dean of pastoral formation at SS. Cyril & Methodius Seminary at Orchard Lake, remembering back to his own student days, recalled how Fr. John Buszek often spoke about his old classmate, Fr. Ciszek.

Both priests came to Orchard Lake from St. Casimir Parish in Shenandoah, Pa., and Fr. Buszek would fondly speak about Fr. Ciszek, Msgr. Koper said.

Among his recollections was how, during recess time, the young Walter Ciszek would stay in his room and study Scripture, memorizing passages from the Bible, and how his classmates thought at the time it was rather strange.

In retrospect, after reading Fr. Ciszek’s book, “He Leadeth Me,” Msgr. Koper said he could understand how the Lord was preparing him for the trials he would face inRussia.

And Msgr. Koper also recalled meeting Fr. Ciszek and “listening wide-eyed” when he spoke to the student body about his experiences behind the Iron Curtain.

After his 1928 graduation from St. Mary’s College, Fr. Ciszek joined the Society of Jesus and volunteered for training to be a missionary to Russia at an institute theVatican had set up in hopes the communist government would soon allow in missionaries. But that hope never materialized, and Fr. Ciszek was sent to serve a Byzantine Catholic parish in western Poland after his ordination in 1937.

Caught up in the Soviet Union’s invasion of Poland in 1939, Fr. Ciszek saw his chance to do the missionary work he had trained for, but was arrested and eventually convicted of being a “Vatican spy.”

He served four years in solitary confinement in the infamous Lubyanka Prison in Moscow, after which he was sent to Siberia for 15 years of hard labor in prison camps, where he surreptitiously ministered to his fellow prisoners.

After his sentence, Fr. Ciszek was given limited freedom in the Soviet Union, where he then ministered while working in factories and as an auto mechanic.

After the U.S. government secured his release in 1963, Fr. Ciszek wrote about his experience in “With God in Russia” (1964) and later retold the story in the more deeply personal and spiritual “He Leadeth Me” (1972).

He worked at the John XXIII Center for Eastern Christian Studies, which at the time was at Fordham University. He gave retreats and talks there and counseled people until his death in 1984.

Now-retired Bishop Michael J. Dudick of the Byzantine Diocese of Passaic, N.J., began the initial phase of the cause for Fr. Ciszek’s canonization in 1990, with the process later transferred to the Diocese of Allentown.

In general, before someone can be canonized, two miracles must be accepted by the church as having occurred through the candidate’s intercession. Both must occur after the person’s death, and the second must have taken place after the candidate is beatified.

Canon Thomas Machalski, chancellor of the Orchard Lake Schools, expressed gratitude to God that an Orchard Lake alumnus is being considered for beatification.

“All of us at Orchard Lake pray that he may one day be officially recognized by the Church and raised to the dignity of the altar. Even now, we ask his intercession on behalf of his beloved alma mater.”

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Tara J. Connolly of Catholic News Service contributed to this story.