Posts
This was a populist sermon of enormous popularity. Its points include the following:
- Opus Justitiae Pax and Justitia Fundamentum Regnorum-peace is the work of justice
- Justice is the basis of domination-The 3rd Reich undermines justice and reduces the German people to a perpetual state of fear and cowardice.
- Confiscating religious institutions result in the destruction of the German people from within and not from allied bombing.
- In the third sermon he attacked euthanasia directly and the lies perpetrated while performing deportation and killing of the mentally ill notifying their relatives they had died.
- To be unproductive is no justification of what is in reality murder, a rejection of the laws of God. If the state can nullify the fifth commandment, it can destroy all the others as well.
- These sermons were sent all over Germany.Allegedly, Karol Wojtyla read a copy in Krakow.The local Gauleiter wanted to arrest von Galen . Goebbels, Bormann and others preferred to wait til the end of the War. The furor aroused by these sermons put an end to Aktion T4. It was however done in greater secrecy.
- The British Royal Air Force dropped this populist sermon among German troops.
- http://kirchensite.de/downloads/Aktuelles/Predigt_Galen_Englisch.pdf Sermon at Xanten
Protests against German euthanasia
On July 13, 1941, von Galen publicly
attacked the regime for its Gestapo's tactics, including disappearances without
trials, the closing of Catholic institutions without any stated justifications,
and the resultant fear imposed on all Germans throughout the nation. The
powerful Gestapo, he argued, reduces everybody, even the most decent and loyal
citizens, to being afraid of ending up in a basement prison or a concentration
camp. As the country was at war, von Galen rejected the notion that his speech
undermines German solidarity or unity. Using the lines of his friend Eugenio
Cardinal Pacelli, as written in Opus Justitiae Pax and Justitia fundamentum
Regnorum, von Galen noted that "[p]eace is the work of justice and justice the
basis of domination," then attacked the Third Reich for undermining justice, the
belief in justice and for reducing the German people to a state of permanent
fear, even cowardice. He concluded: As a German, as a decent citizen I demand
justice.[10]
In a second sermon on July 20, 1941, von Galen informed the
faithful that all written protests against Nazi hostilities had proven to be
useless. The confiscation of religious institutions continued unabated. Members
of religious orders were still deported or jailed. Since Christians are not
typically revolutionaries, he asked his listeners to be patient and to endure,
and that the German people were being destroyed not by the Allied bombing from
the outside, but from negative forces within.[11]
On August 3, 1941, von Galen informed his listeners in a third sermon about
the continued desecration of Catholic churches, closing of convents and
monasteries, and the deportation and euthanasia of mentally ill people (who were
sent to destinations, usually concentration camps, while a notice was sent to
family members stating that the person is question had died). This is murder, he
exclaimed, unlawful by divine and German law, a rejection of the laws of God. He
informed them that he had forwarded his evidence to the State Attorney. "These
are people, our brothers and sisters; maybe their life is unproductive, but
productivity is not a justification for killing." If that were indeed a
justification for execution, he reasoned, everybody would have to be afraid to
even go to a doctor for fear of what might be discovered. The social fabric
would be affected. von Galen then remarked that a regime which can do away with
the Fifth Commandment (thou shalt not kill) can destroy the other commandments
as well.[12]
The sermons were reproduced and sent all over Germany to
families, and to German soldiers on the Western and Eastern Fronts. Allegedly,
Karol Wojtyla is to have read a copy in Krakow (it is unclear whether he read a
copy while already a member of the Polish Resistance, or whether the sermon
itself influenced his decision to join). The resulting local protests in Germany
led to an immediate end of the euthanasia program Aktion T4.[13] The local Nazi
Gauleiter was furious and asked for the immediate arrest of von Galen. However,
Joseph Göbbels, Bormann and others preferred to wait until the end of World War
II , as not to undermine in the heavily Catholic area the German morale during
the ongoing war.[14] Of von Galen's remarks, perhaps the most effective was his
question asking whether permanently injured German soldiers would fall under the
program as well. A year later, the euthanasia program was still active, but the
regime conducted it in greater secrecy.
According to scholars, "[t]his
powerful, populist sermon was immediately reproduced and distributed throughout
Germany — indeed, it was dropped among German troops by British Royal Air Force
flyers. Galen's sermon probably had a greater impact than any other one
statement in consolidating anti-‘euthanasia' sentiment."[15]
In 1929 Clemens August von Galen was called back into the diocese of
Münster and appointed parish priest of St Lambert’s Church in Münster.
After the death of Bishop Johannes Poggenburg, Clemens August von Galen
was made Bishop of Münster. The consecration took place on 28th October
1933. As his motto he chose: „Nec laudibus nec timore“ - „Unconcerned
about praise, unaffected by fear“.
Already in his first Lent pastoral letter in 1934 Bishop Clemens August
exposed the neo-heathen ideology of National Socialism. Time and again he
stood up for the Church’s liberty, for that of the church associations, and
for the protection of religious education, by presenting petitions to the
competent state authorities and by pleading these rights in public speeches
and sermons.
When Alfred Rosenberg in his „Mythos of the Twentieth
Century“ attacked the Church and the Christian faith, he assumed the
responsibility for a rejoinder written by Catholic men of science, the „Studies
Concerning the Mythos“, and had them published as supplement to the
gazette of the diocese of Münster.
Bishop Clemens August belonged to those bishops whom Pope Pius XI in
January 1937 invited to Rome in order to discuss the situation in Germany
and to prepare the encyclical letter „With Burning Anxiety“, which taxed
and accused the National Socialist regime before the world public.
Together with the others bishops Bishop Clemens August, in several pastoral
letters, stood up against the racial doctrine of the Nazis. In the Fulda
conference of bishops he was one of those who demanded that a determined
stand be made against National Socialism, and this above all also in public.
In 1941, when the Third Reich had reached its height of power, the state
authorities began to confiscate convents and monasteries and to expel the
religious. At the same time it transpired that extensive measures were being
5
taken for the killing of mentally handicapped persons. In three great sermons
on 13th and 20th July and on 3rd August the Bishop publicly exposed this
outrage upon justice.
In his sermon in St Lambert’s Church in Münster on 13th July 1941 he
says: „None of us is safe - and may he know that he is the most loyal and
conscientious of citizens and may he be conscious of his complete innocence
- he cannot be sure that he will not some day be deported from his home,
deprived of his freedom and locked up in the cellars and concentration
camps of the Gestapo (i. e. the State Secret Police)“. Most emphatically he
pointed out: „Justice is the only solid foundation of any state. The right to
life, to inviolability, to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral order
of society ... We demand justice! If this call remains unheard and unanswered,
if the reign of Justice is not restored, then our German people and our
country - in spite of the heroism of our soldiers and the glorious victories
they have won - will perish through an inner rottenness and decay.“
Together with the others bishops Bishop Clemens August, in several pastoral
letters, stood up against the racial doctrine of the Nazis. In the Fulda
conference of bishops he was one of those who demanded that a determined
stand be made against National Socialism, and this above all also in public.
In 1941, when the Third Reich had reached its height of power, the state
authorities began to confiscate convents and monasteries and to expel the
religious. At the same time it transpired that extensive measures were being
5
taken for the killing of mentally handicapped persons. In three great sermons
on 13th and 20th July and on 3rd August the Bishop publicly exposed this
outrage upon justice.
In his sermon in St Lambert’s Church in Münster on 13th July 1941 he
says: „None of us is safe - and may he know that he is the most loyal and
conscientious of citizens and may he be conscious of his complete innocence
- he cannot be sure that he will not some day be deported from his home,
deprived of his freedom and locked up in the cellars and concentration
camps of the Gestapo (i. e. the State Secret Police)“. Most emphatically he
pointed out: „Justice is the only solid foundation of any state. The right to
life, to inviolability, to freedom is an indispensable part of any moral order
of society ... We demand justice! If this call remains unheard and unanswered,
if the reign of Justice is not restored, then our German people and our
country - in spite of the heroism of our soldiers and the glorious victories
they have won - will perish through an inner rottenness and decay.“
If it is once admitted that men have the right to kill
„unproductive“ fellow-men - even though it is at present applied only to
poor and defenceless mentally ill patients - then the way is open for the
murder of all unproductive men and women: the incurably ill, those disabled
in industry or war. The way is open, indeed, for the murder of all of us,
when we become old and infirm and therefore unproductive“.
Far and wide the sermons of the Bishop created a sensation. They were
secretly duplicated and passed on far beyond the frontiers of Germany.
After having preached these sermons the Bishop was prepared to be
arrested by the Gestapo. It was Reichsleiter Bormann who suggested to
Hitler, that the Bishop should be taken into custody and be hanged. The
Nazi command, however, feared that in such a case the population of the
diocese of Münster had to be written off as lost for the duration of the war.
The Bishop was deeply dejected when in his place 24 secular priests and
13 members of the regular clergy were deported into concentration camps,
of whom 10 lost their lives.SERMON AT XANTEN 1936
Thus did the Christian confessors and martyrs think and act. You know that
many martyrs of the Catholic church have been drawn from the ranks of
brave soldiers: St. Theodore, St. George, St.Sebastian, St. Mauritius, Cassius
and Florentinus, Gereon, and your own St. Victor, with whom according to
legend all the officers and men of their legion suffered martyrdom for the
sake of Christ. They allowed themselves to be mown down by their heathen
comrades, without defending themselves or offering resistance. The swords
which they had so heroically wielded in the heat of battle for their emperor
and their fatherland they did not draw against their comrades who on the
orders of the emperor fell upon them like enemies, to massacre them. In
them they saw not enemies, but misguided friends. They did not fight the
emperor, rather they obeyed the emperor unto death. For it was the
emperor who ordered that they must either sacrifice to the idols or die.
Because they could not offer up that sacrifice without sinning, they chose
to die, in order not to sin. Is that not faithfulness? Is that not heroism? Is
that not courage in the service of the emperor, and in the service of God
even unto death?
No comments:
Post a Comment