The progress of the cause
On 26 February 2010 the public opening meeting of diocese inquiry of beatification of Fr. Titus Zeman took place at the Faculty of Roman Catholic Theology of Cyril and Methodius of the Comenius University at Kapitulská street in Bratislava. /photogallery
On 2 September 2010 the exhumation of Fr Titus Zeman´s remains took place in Vajnory. Mons. Stanislav Zvolenský, the archbishop of Bratislava and also the Metropolitan archbishop who named the tribunal which was led by the bishop delegate JCDr. Jozef Kemp, gave the permission on the exhumation in the diocesan process of the beatification.
On 7 December 2012 the final public meeting of the Archiepiscopal Tribunal took place. By this the first phase of the first level of beatification of Fr Titus Zeman ended. The documents containing testimonies, historical documents or medical opinions after having been sealed up with wax and seal of the archiepiscopal authority were sent to Vatican, to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
The documents of the process have thousands of pages, they are written in the Slovak and the Italian language. Thirty thousand seals and twenty thousand signatures of a notary were necessary to verified it all. The vice postulator for the cause of the beatification Fr Jozef Slivoň accompanied it. He took the oath in front of the Metropolitan archbishop of Bratislava Mons. Stanislav Zvolenský. /photogallery
On 28 June 2013 the Congregation for the Causes of Saints delivered its opinion on the materials in the cause of a Slovak Salesian Fr Titus Zeman at its due meeting. In the letter of the Prefect of the Congregation Cardinal Angelo Amato, there is written that on that day the Decree on the Legal Validity of the Diocesan Examination in the case of the life and the martyrdom for faith of a Servant of God Fr Titus Zeman (1915-1969) was issued on that day. The Congregation confirmed that the materials that were gathered during the nearly three years works on the Cause in the archdiocese of Bratislava in the Slovak Republic were valid and with no errors. After this decree, the request to name the Relator – a person who would prepare the so-called Positio, the summary document for the next examination – was filed to the Congregation.
On 5 January 2014 the Congregation for the Causes of Saints gave to Fr Titus Zeman the title of the Servant of God with the reputation of a martyr.
On 8 June 2015 Rector Major of the Salesians Fr Ángel Fernández Artime visited Prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints Cardinal Angelo Amato. He officially introduced to him and gave him the Positio super martyrio of the Slovak Salesian and Servant of God Titus Zeman. Rector Major was accompanied by General postulator Fr Pierluigi Cameroni and Vice Postulator of the Cause of the Servant of God Fr Jozef Slivoň. Relator for the Positio of the Servant of God with the reputation of a martyr Fr Titus Zeman was Pater Zdisław Kijas, OFM Conv., and the co-workers were Lodovica Maria Zanet and Helena Barátová.
On 7 April 2016 the consulting commission of theologians dealt with the Positio and the martyrdom of Titus Zeman. It expressed its positive attitude.
On 21 February 2017 the commission of cardinals and bishops members of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints discussed the cause of the martyrdom of Slovak Salesian Titus Zeman during its due meeting. The members of the commission expressed their positive opinion about the martyrdom of the Servant of God. By this mean this process of the beatification of Fr Titus was crowned.
On 27 February 2017 Pope Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to issue the Decree on the Martyrdom of the Servant of God Fr Titus Zeman, the priest of the Society of St. Francis de Sales.
Titus Zeman´s beatification took place in Bratislava on 30 September 2017.