First-class relics of the Blessed Ulma family visited the diocese March 13-15, stopping at three parishes for veneration.
Thousands of faithful made pilgrimages to Columbus St. Patrick, Cardington Sacred Hearts and Marion St. Mary churches during the three-day span.
The Ulmas are the first family to be beatified together by the Church. Their September 2023 beatification marked one step closer to sainthood.
The family, from Markowa, Poland, was murdered in the early morning of March 24, 1944, while Nazi Germans occupied Poland during World War II. Married couple Józef and Wiktoria Ulma and their seven children were executed for sheltering eight Jewish neighbors for 14 months.
First-class bone relics of each of the nine Ulma family members were present for veneration.
The reliquary, which holds the relics, featured an image of a grain of wheat with seven marks, symbolizing the fruit of the Ulmas’ marriage in seven children, and the palm of martyrdom.
The family’s children included Stanisława, 8; Barbara, 7; Władysław, 6; Franciszek, 4; Antoni, 3; Maria, 1; and Baby Ulma in utero. During the execution, Wiktoria, 32, in the advanced stages of pregnancy, gave birth to her youngest child as she died.
VATICAN | Pope Leo XIV tells families they are the cradle of humanity’s future at jubilee celebration
Baby Ulma had a “baptism of blood,” according to the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of the Saints. Beatification of the unbaptized child, connected to his mother’s womb, was the first in Church history.
Chris Copley, a Marion St. Mary parishioner and insurance field agent for the Knights of Columbus organization, venerated the Ulmas’ relics. The Knights of Columbus, which empowers men to live the Catholic faith and serve their family, parish, community and country, offers members a range of insurance products.
Copley, a husband and father of five, had a profound connection to the beatified family. He lost his youngest son at 40 weeks gestation, stillborn a few days after his due date.
Copley’s insurance agency, the Knights of Columbus Staas Agency, which covers a significant portion of Ohio, shared his story. The Knights provide a $5,000 death benefit for families who experience stillbirths after 20 weeks gestation.
The agency contacted Father Jon Kalisch, O.P. (Order of Preachers), director of chaplains and spiritual development for the Supreme Council of the Knights of Columbus in New Haven, Connecticut.
The Dominican priest, whose parents belonged to Marion St. Mary parish, regularly preaches at retreats and parish missions. The bishop the Archdiocese of Przemyśl, Poland, granted Father Kalisch permission to bring first-class relics of the Ulma family to the United States in 2025.
Relics arrived in the Columbus diocese in time for a novena (nine days of prayer) to the Blessed Ulmas concluding March 24, the 82nd anniversary of the family’s martyrdom.
MORE ON ULMA FAMILY | The Blessed Ulma Family and our Catholic moment
“Blessed Józef and Wiktoria Ulma are profound examples of the witness of charity for married couples and those preparing for sacramental marriage,” Father Kalisch affirmed.
“They fashioned their home into a model of the domestic church, open to all life. In the face of the mystery of evil and war, they were not indifferent to the plight of those in need or the most vulnerable.”
The Ulmas provided the Copleys hope. They had faith that their baby, too, although not baptized, is counted among the saints.
“When I heard that story,” Copley said of the Blessed Ulmas, “the impact that it had on me as a father who had lost a child before birth… – there’s no definitive Church teaching on what happens when the child dies before he can be baptized. We trust in God’s mercy; we hope in God’s mercy.
“What the Ulmas show us is that there is reasonable hope that our children who we’ve lost are with God, and that’s the mission of the Knights of Columbus, is to be that neighbor, to care for the families and to protect those families.”
Copley and his wife, Destiny, were set to welcome their fifth child on April 30, 2025. Months earlier they discovered they were expecting a baby boy and named him James Augustine.
“The day that we had an ultrasound to find out the gender, the daily reading for that day was from the Book of James (1:2-4),” Copley recalled.
“James says, ‘My brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of any kind, consider it nothing but joy because you know that the testing of your faith produces endurance, and let endurance have its full effect, so that you may be mature and complete, lacking in nothing.’
“That really spoke to me that day, and then we go down and have the ultrasound and find out that it’s a boy.”
James was given his father’s Confirmation saint, Augustine, for his middle name.
On Destiny’s due date, Copley recalled, the baby was not moving. She continued to feel no movement the following day.
An ultrasound was performed shortly after. The Copleys received heartbreaking news: their son’s heart was not beating. James Augustine had died.
He was delivered a day later on May 3, 2025, the feast of Ss. Philip and James, Apostles.
“It was during that time that we were just overwhelmed with grace,” Copley said. “Our pastor and our parochial vicar, they were with us in the hospital.
“One of our diocesan priests, Father Seth Keller, he was in Rome, and he sent us photos from the actual tomb of St. James where he was praying for us. The Knights of Columbus – my organization, the entire order was praying for our family – religious orders praying for our family. It was just as grace-filled (an) experience as you could hope to have in that time.”
Relics of Blessed Michael McGivney, founder of the Knights of Columbus, were also present for veneration, anticipating the 144th anniversary of the organization’s founding on March 29.
“The short 13 years of his priesthood and the creative courage he showed throughout impacted not simply the parishioners of his Connecticut parishes but overflowed to the founding of the world’s largest lay Catholic organization,” Father Kalisch said of Blessed McGivney.
MORE KNIGHTS OF COLUMBUS | Fish fry season begins with St. Joan of Arc set for 30th year
“Our mission is to strengthen Catholic communities, to strengthen parishes,” Copley added of the Knights, “provide protection for those families in the event of … the unexplainable, the unforeseen.”
The Blessed Ulmas’ feast day is celebrated July 7, the anniversary of Józef and Wiktoria Ulma’s sacramental marriage.
For additional information on the family, visit Blessed Joseph and Victoria Ulma with Children. To learn more about the Knights of Columbus, visit Knights of Columbus | Catholic Fraternal Organization.