Pope Francis II will elevate to the rank of saint the Dutch priest, academic and journalist Titus Randesma, who was assassinated in Dachau after openly opposing harm to Jews during World War II and the Holocaust.
Brandesma, a member of the Carmelite Order and president of the Catholic University of Neimagen, spoke openly against Nazi ideology even before the occupation and opposed any cooperation with the Nazi occupation regime.
During the Nazi occupation he delivered open sermons and masses against harm to Jews and laws discriminating against Jews and was arrested by the Gestapo in 1942.
The priest used the Nazis for biological experiments and was eventually killed by poison injection in Dachau in 1942. The Vatican said the pope confirmed the claim that Brandesma performed a miracle and indeed deserved a holy virtue, higher than the "blessed" or "Beatus" virtue he had won in 1985.
The church, which believes that God performs miracles through the saints and prayers to them, refused to reveal the miracle they claim performed by the priest who was murdered by the Nazis but is apparently related to a miraculous healing of a patient during his prolonged detention.
Brandema is not the first saint to be murdered by the Nazis Among the saints are the Polish priest Maximilian Kolba and the nun Edith Stein, a German nun who converted to Judaism but was murdered as a Jew in Auschwitz.
Were we wrong?
Fixed!
If you find an error in the article, we will be happy for you to share it with us and we will correct it