Blessed Denunciation
Fr. Frank Pavone
National Director, Priests for Life
(Click here for
the Spanish Version)
“Once admit the right to kill unproductive persons . . . then none
of us can be sure of his life.” So spoke Cardinal Clemens von Galen, of
Munster, Germany, in 1941. This Cardinal was called the “Lion of Munster,”
because he roared with the voice of the Gospel against the atrocities of the
Nazi Regime. Two decades later, in the United States, Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.
would say to preachers, on the night before he was assassinated, that while it’s
fine to preach about the “New Jerusalem,” the preacher must also preach about
“the new New York…and the new Memphis, Tennessee.” Cardinal von Galen knew about
what Dr. King later called “a relevant ministry,” one that does not hesitate to
name names, and apply the eternal teachings of Christ to the temporary regimes
of human making.
As of October 9 of this year, Cardinal von Galen will be known as
Blessed
Clemens von Galen. He will be beatified at St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome.
His beatification means, of course, that the Church is holding him up
as an example. Since he was a priest and a preacher (as well as a bishop and
Cardinal), those of us who exercise those roles would not be far off the mark in
concluding that the Church intends to raise him up as an example
for us.
Cardinal von Galen’s blistering sermons about the Nazis remind us of a
point made in the recently released Vatican document the Compendium of the
Social Doctrine of the Church. The document declares, “The Church’s social
doctrine has the task of proclamation, but also of denunciation
(emphasis in the original).” The document continues, “This social doctrine
also entails a duty to denounce, when sin is present: the sin of injustice
and violence that in different ways moves through society and is embodied in it”
(n. 81).
Cardinal von Galen’s homilies of the summer of 1941 became famous and
brought him to the brink of being arrested and condemned to death. Von Galen
protested with special force against euthanasia: “There is little doubt that
these numerous cases of unexpected death in the case of the insane are not
natural, but often deliberately caused, and result from the belief that it is
lawful to take away life which is unworthy of being lived... The opinion is that
since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete machines, comparable with
some old cow that can no longer give milk or some horse that has gone lame.
...Here we are dealing with human beings, with our neighbours, brothers and
sisters, the poor and invalids . . . unproductive—perhaps! But have they,
therefore, lost the right to live? Have you or I the right to exist only because
we are ‘productive’?” (August 3, 1941).
Let the example of von Galen live and pulsate through the Church at
every level, as we attack the Culture of Death! Let him teach us not to fear
lawsuits or complaints! Blessed Clemens von Galen, pray for
us!
(Read the Cardinal’s sermons at www.priestsforlife.org.)
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