Blessed George Haefner: He defied the Nazis

Sixty-eight years after he died of starvation and disease at Dachau, the Catholic Church in Bavaria celebrated the beatification of the German priest Georg Haefner (1900-42), whose death at the hands of the Nazis was judged to be out of "hatred for the faith". His death has been seen as the death of a martyr.

One of nearly 500 German and Austrian clerics to be jailed, Hafner's reported offense was to preach against the rise of the Third Reich. The new Blessed becomes the fourth Catholic to be recognized for their sanctity, who perished under the Nazis. He joins Saints Maximilian Kolbe and Teresa Benedicta of the Cross (Edith Stein), and Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, the Austrian farmer who was executed for refusing to be part of the silent majority. (Another light of the era was now-Blessed Cardinal Clemens August von Galen, courageous preacher against the Nazis during the war, who died in 1946).

The beatification ceremony of Father Haefner took place on Sunday, May 15, the commemoration of the Good Shepherd. Pope Benedict XVI, himself a Bavarian, said in the noontime prayer in Saint Peter’s in Rome: “Amid the tumult of Nazism, Georg Hafner was present as a faithful pastor, sacrificing his life to feed his flock, leading many people to the waters of life in the proclamation of the truth and the administration of the sacraments”.

In Germany, Bl Georg's feast will be observed on the date of his death, 20 August.