 |
|||||||||
 |
|||||||||
|
|||||||||
June
20, 2005 
VOL.
43, NO. 12Oakland,
CA
COMMENTARY
Dutch priest killed during Holocaust is a model of courage
Our Sunday Visitor’s Treasury of Catholic Stories
includes a brief profile of a remarkable man — Father Titus Brandsma,
a Dutch Carmelite priest who taught philosophy at the Catholic University
in Nijmegen, Netherlands. In 1932, he became the University president
and, three years later, he was appointed spiritual advisor to more than
30 Catholic newspapers.
That year Father Titus began writing against anti-Jewish laws. Even after
the Germans occupied his homeland, he continued his criticism. When the
Dutch Catholic Church hierarchy refused to let Nazi propaganda appear
in their papers, Father Titus decided to deliver the bishops’ letter
to each editor, forbidding them from complying with a new law that ordered
newspapers to print official Nazi information.
He was arrested in January 1942. After months in several Dutch prisons,
he was sent to the infamous concentration camp at Dachau, Germany, where
he became known for his gentle compassion, calm resignation, and spirit
of hope. To one and all, he offered consolation: “We are here in
a dark tunnel,” he said. “We have to pass through it. Somewhere
at the end shines the eternal light.”
Finally, worn out by the cruel treatment, Father Titus was sent to the
camp’s “hospital.” There he was used for some of the
notorious experiments routinely conducted on sick prisoners.
On July 26, 1942, a nurse came to give him a lethal injection. Discovering
that she was a Dutch Catholic, he asked her, “How is it that you
ended up here? I shall pray for you a great deal.”
When he offered her his rosary, she protested, “I can no longer
pray.”
The dying man still had the spirit to reply, “Well, if you can’t
say the first part, surely you can still say, ‘Pray for us sinners.’”
Within minutes of the injection, Father Titus Brandsma was dead.
Years later, the nurse returned to her faith. And when Father Titus was
nominated for sainthood, she gave evidence about his last days and his
death.
Beatified in 1985, Blessed Titus Brandsma reminds us, in our own age of
violence and suffering, that we must all make our choices. We must remember
that Light that awaits us at the end of the tunnel.
