RIP: 03/10/2021 - Hackensack
Fr. Włodzimierz Łaś was born on 22 January 1959 in Bytom, Upper Silesia. After having completed his secondary studies, he entered the novitiate on 8 September 1979 in Bagno, where he, exactly one year later, on the Feast of the Nativity of Blessed Virgen Mary 1980 professed his first vows. From 1980 until 1986 he continued his initial Salvatorian formation and studied Philosophy and Theology at the Salvatorian Theological Seminary in Bagno. On 12 June 1986, he was ordained a priest in the Basilica of Trzebnica. Straight after ordination he worked in different parishes in Poland. However, having expressed already a deep desire to work abroad at different points during his life as a Salvatorian, he was allowed to go to the United States of America to serve there from autumn 1989 on. For 14 years he was active in different pastoral ministries in Merrillville, Verona, and New York. In June 2003, Fr. Włodzimierz returned to Poland for spiritual renewal and studies. One year later, after having obtained a Master´s degree in Canon Law at the Pontifical Faculty of Theology in Wroclaw, he returned to the USA where he worked with enthusiasm and in a very dynamic way in different parishes and different dioceses. He finished his earthly pilgrimage after a long struggle with illness on 3 October 2021, in times of the pandemic COVID-19, at Holy Name Hospital in Hackensack, NJ, USA. He died at the age of 62 years, after having been for 41 years a professed Salvatorian.