RU 48/2005 - CARDINAL VON GALEN

- CARDINAL VON GALEN: He died in 1946, and was beatified in Rome on last October 9th. He is called the "Lion of Münster" (in Westphalia in Germany), because he resisted heroically the pestilence of secularism "incorporated by Nazism". He risked the martyrdom of blood, but God granted him the martyrdom of the heart: impotent he had to assist, in spite of his vehement protests, to the deportation of his priests, to the exile of his religious and

nuns, to the indoctrination of the youth, and to the murder of innocents.

- He was the 11th of 13 children. Here we have in one single fact the whole history of the decline of the Christianity today. Why are we lacking priests today? Because we prefer abortion, and the - oh how much Catholic! - pill, the spiral implant, and especially our voracity of possession of things of this earth, instead of loving children and sacrificing for them. It's objectively a sacrilege to ask God for further priestly vocations: God is not the guilty one, He grants thousands and thousands of vocations, as He always did, but we throw them into the trash cans of abortion mills, we sacrifice them to the personal well-being, in last analysis we don't want them. Let's rather pray that God grant us the love of the sacrifice, of the oblivion of ourselves, of his Holy Cross, so that the seed of his innumerable vocations can germinate in us, and around us, and create many fruits!

- In summer 1941, cardinal von Galen, at the time only "bishop of Münster", raised his voice against Hitler from the pulpit of his cathedral. Not against the persecution and the deportation of the Jews (it seems that those ones asked him, pusillanimously, not to speak about them in public in order not to risk to aggravate their situation), but against the premeditated and organized murder of the disabled ones. His powerful sermons caused, on August 23rd, 1941, the stop by Hitler of "Action T4" aiming at the extermination of hundred thousands of mental patients and disabled ("Untermenschen"), after the secret execution of several ten thousands among them, of which about 5,000 children, in six special "institutes" in Germany and Austria. (Note for our readers in France: the forms to be filled out for each patient to be eliminated, were provided by a Nazi office called "IVG"; Satan is very logical and permanent in his choices, until the very words!). The bishop von Galen had caused the stop of the massacre by his simple voice yelling the truth. He especially accused from his pulpit, during his sermon of August 3rd, 1941, the Secretary of Home Affairs and the Service of the medical officer in chief of the Reich, Dr Conti (i.e. the 'minister of health' of that time), of the "purposeful murder of a big number of mentally ill people in Germany". He requested that actions be taken in order "to protect the concerned patients by immediate measures against those authorities (!) projecting their displacement and their murder". During that period, he finished his sermons by these memorable words: "I know that the GESTAPO is hidden here in the crowd: well then, why don't you arrest me at the exit of the Mass?" But never he has been bothered, because Hitler feared that his arrest would raise all the Catholics of Germany against him.

- On that day, on August 3rd, 1941, Msgr. von Galen preached: "One of the patients of the hospital of Marienthal was a man of 55 years, a farmer of a countryside parish in our diocese of Münster. I could give you his name. He suffered during some years of mental disruptions and has been confined to the hospital of Marienthal. He was not mentally ill in the full sense of the term: he could receive visits and was always happy, when members of his family came to see him. Only two weeks back, his wife visited him with one of his sons, a soldier who was sent to the front and was for some days on leave at home. The son was very attached to his sick father, and so the separation was difficult... Surely this soldier won't see his father again on this earth, because he was since put on the list of the 'non-productives'. A family member who wanted to visit the father this week at Marienthal, received the information that the patient had been transferred elsewhere. No information could be provided on the place where he had been sent, but parents would be informed from there some days later. What will this information be? The same as in similar cases: that the man died, that his body has been incinerated, that his ashes can be returned to the family against payment of fees! The soldier, risking his life on the field of honor for his compatriots, won't see back his father on earth, because compatriots killed him at home... Those poor patients must die, because, upon the decision of a certain committee, they became 'unworthy to live', because they are classified 'non-productive members of the national community'. The judgment says that they cannot produce any good: they are considered like old machines out of work, like old horses which became incurably ill, like cows which can't give milk any more... Have we the right to live only as a long as we are productive, as we are recognized by others to be productive? ... 'You shall not kill!' Solely God's commandment has the right over life and death. It has been written down in the heart of men at the beginning, a long time before God gave to the children of Israel, on the the Sinai mountain, the fundamental law written down in those lapidary sentences on the stone, which are conserved for us in the Holy Scripture and which, as children, we learned by heart in catechism class. 'I am the Lord your God!...' Calamity to men, calamity to the German people, when God's holy commandment 'you won't kill!' is not only violated, but its violation is tolerated and exercised without punishment!"

- The cardinal von Galen, by his public engagement, recalls for us the strength of the truth. He knew that most of the German bishops didn't follow him on this path: "All this will be of no use as long as the bishops won't tackle the problem all together!" Too bad, he stood up all alone, knowing that the truth is as powerful as God Himself. And the massacre stopped. A bishop like that is an immense grace for a country. What would he have said about the present massacre of millions of innocent babies by "IVG" (French name for abortion)? What sermon would he pronounce? Consider that this massacre could be stopped if only one bishop - a single one! - decided to stand up and to shout THE TRUTH at the face of our godless world. - One consolation: God sometimes grants such prophets, not because the people would deserve it, but as a healthy punishment. Therefore there is much hope that soon, very soon, a powerful voice will rise among us, the Voice of the Truth, God's Voice: "You shall not kill!" And the murderous Republic will shiver, as Hitler shivered before this bishop, the blessed cardinal von Galen. - (ru; cf. www.1939-45.org/Aktion T4; ZEN Oct.9,2005; LG Oct.10,2005; CRC nov. 2005; DS Oct. 24, 2005)

- - A.M.D.G. - -