August Hlond, SDB (5 July 1881 – 22 October 1948) was a Polish Salesian prelate who served as Archbishop of Poznań and Gniezno and as Primate of Poland.

He was later appointed Archbishop of Gniezno and Warsaw and was made a cardinal of the Catholic Church by Pope Pius XI in 1927.

He was the only member of the College of Cardinals to be arrested and taken into custody by the Gestapo during World War II, and for the final years of his life was a critic of the Soviet-backed communist regime in Poland.

He remained in the city for 13 years, and working with spiritual and charitable organisations for Poles, and becoming Provincial of the Salesians for Austria, Hungary and Germany in 1919.

He succeeded Cardinal Edmund Dalbor, as Primate of Poland soon after and in 1927, was appointed Cardinal-Priest of Santa Maria della Pace by Pope Pius XI.

Through the tumultuous 1930s, Hlond condemned "escapism" and called on the Church should challenge the evil realities of the times, and, speaking 12 languages, became an influential member of the College of Cardinals on the international stage.

The Canon Casimir Stepczynski... was forced in company with a Jew to carry away the human excrement... the curate who wished to take the place of the venerable priest was brutally beaten with a rifle buttIn his final observations for Pope Pius XII, Hlond wrote:[9] Hitlerism aims at the systematic and total destruction of the Catholic Church in the rich and fertile territories of Poland which have been incorporated into the Reich...

In January 1940, Vatican Radio broadcast Hlond's reports of German persecution of Jews and the Catholic clergy in Poland.

The Americans flew Hlond to Paris, and then to Rome on April 25, finally returning to war ravaged Poland on 20 July 1945.

[1] Hlond reported in August 1941 to the Cardinal Secretary of State, Luigi Maglione, that the Polish people believed Pope Pius XII had abandoned them.

[citation needed] Pope Pius XII appointed Hlond as Archbishop of Warsaw, on 4 March 1946 and he was installed on May 30, amid immense crowds of supporters.

Following Hlond's death in 1948, The Tablet wrote that "the nations of Eastern Europe which lie today beneath the police-regimes imposed from Moscow lost their most powerful spokesman".

One should honor and love Jews as human beings and neighbors[12] Yet, despite a warning to Catholics not to take an anti-Jewish moral stance, interspersed in the letter's words of friendship was an explicit condemnation of Jewish culture and also Judaism for its rejection of Jesus Christ.

[14][15] He saw the pogrom as a reaction against Jewish bureaucrats allegedly serving Communist regime, a common excuse among Polish antisemites.

Scholz opposes his actions against post-war German expellees and civilians from territories ceded by Allies to the Polish Republic.

[citation needed] Documentation (a Positio) was submitted to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints (CCS) in 2008 and on 9 March 2017 a group of nine theologians approved naming Hlond "Venerable" with 8 votes in favor and 1 abstention.