Blessed Clemens Von Galen

Ready to die as a martyr: Earl Clemens Von Galen, Bishop Of Muenster.

Interesting article on LifeSiteNews about Graf Clemens Von Galen, Bishop of Muenster, Germany.

Galen had the gut of being openly critical of Hitler’s euthanasia plans (oh, how history repeats itself…) in a time when thousands of Catholic priests were already toiling and dying in concentration camps (a circumstance, this, which is never remembered by the anti-Catholic nutcases); and in wartime to boot, when he could have been liquidated even more easily than in peace time. The claim that he expected martyrdom is, for everyone who knows a bit about Nazi Germany, completely realistic.

It didn’t happen. This time, Hitler felt that he couldn’t afford an open confrontation with a high prelate and backed down in the way he generally used to do it (that is: making in a hidden way what he wouldn’t consider prudent to do in an open one).

I have written already about the pathetic show of the UK bishops (and not only of the UK ones) about abortion. This courageous man of God provides a beautiful contrast to their behaviour.

Mind, though: I am not asking from our Bishops for martyrdom, or concentration camp. But if only two generations ago, amidst the most terrifying of circumstances, bishops had the courage to say the Truth out loud, I don’t think it is too much to ask that a tiny fraction of this courage be found in today’s Western Europe, with no martyrdom or concentration camps in sight.

Mundabor