Layman and martyr
Beatification, 26 October
2007, Linz (Austria)
Franz Jägerstätter was born on 20 May 1907 in St Radegund,
Upper Austria, to his unmarried mother, Rosalia Huber, and
to Franz Bachmeier, who was killed during World War I. After
the death of his natural father, Rosalia married Heinrich
Jägerstätter, who adopted Franz and gave the boy his surname
of Jägerstätter in 1917.
Franz received a basic education in his village's one-room
schoolhouse. His step-grandfather helped with his education
and the boy became an avid reader.
It seems Franz was unruly in his younger years; he was, in
fact, the first in his village to own a motorcycle. However,
he is better known as an ordinary and humble Catholic who
did not draw attention to himself.
After his marriage to Franziska in 1936 and their honeymoon
in Rome, Franz grew in his faith but was not extreme in his
piety.
Besides his farm work Franz became the local sexton in 1936
and began receiving the Eucharist daily. He was known to
refuse the customary offering for his services at funerals,
preferring the spiritual and corporal works of mercy over
any remuneration.
In the mid to late 1930s,
while much of Austria was beginning to follow the tide of
Nazism, Franz became ever more rooted in his Catholic faith
and placed his complete trust in God.
While carrying out his duties as husband and bread-winner
for his wife and three daughters, this ordinary man began
thinking deeply about obedience to legitimate authority and
obedience to God, about mortal life and eternal life and
about Jesus' suffering and Passion.
Franz was neither a revolutionary nor part of any resistance
movement, but in 1938 he was the only local citizen to vote
against the "Anschluss" (annexation of Austria by Germany),
because his conscience prevailed over the path of least
resistance.
Franz Jägerstätter was
called up for military service and sworn in on 17 June 1940.
Shortly thereafter, thanks to the intervention of his mayor,
he was allowed to return to the farm. Later, he was in
active service from October 1940 to April 1941, until the
mayor's further intervention permitted his return home.
He became convinced that participation in the war was a
serious sin and decided that any future call-up had to be
met with his refusal to fight.
"It is very sad", he wrote, "to hear again and again from
Catholics that this war waged by Germany is perhaps not so
unjust because it will wipe out Bolshevism.... But now a
question: what are they fighting in this Country -
Bolshevism or the Russian People?
"When our Catholic missionaries went to a pagan country to
make them Christians, did they advance with machine guns and
bombs in order to convert and improve them?... If
adversaries wage war on another nation, they have usually
invaded the country not to improve people or even perhaps to
give them something, but usually to get something for
themselves.... If we were merely fighting Bolshevism, these
other things - minerals, oil wells or good farmland - would
not be a factor".
Jägerstätter was at peace with himself despite the alarm he
could have experienced witnessing the masses' capitulation
to Hitler. Mesmerized by the National Socialist propaganda
machine, many people knelt when Hitler made his entrance
into Vienna. Catholic Churches were forced to fly the
swastika flag and subjected to other abusive laws.
In February 1943 Franz was called up again for military
service. He presented himself at the induction centre on 1
March 1943 and announced his refusal to fight, offering to
carry out non-violent services: this was denied him.
He was held in custody at Linz in March and April,
transferred to Berlin-Tegel in May and subject to trial on 6
July 1943 when he was condemned to death for sedition. The
prison chaplain was struck by the man's tranquil character.
On being offered the New Testament, he replied: "I am
completely bound in inner union with the Lord, and any
reading would only interrupt my communication with my God".
On 9 August, before being executed, Franz wrote: "If I must
write... with my hands in chains, I find that much better
than if my will were in chains. Neither prison nor chains
nor sentence of death can rob a man of the Faith and his
free will. God gives so much strength that it is possible to
bear any suffering.... People worry about the obligations of
conscience as they concern my wife and children.
But I cannot believe that, just because one has a wife and
children, a man is free to offend God".
Franz Jägerstätter, who
would not bow his head to Hitler, bowed his head to God, and
the guillotine took care of the rest. He was obviously
called up to serve a higher order.
_____________________________
Source: Vatican website
at
http://www.vatican.va/news_services/liturgy/saints
NOTE: Franz Jagerstatter was a Secular Franciscan.
BOOK
RECOMMENDATION. In Solitary Witness by
Gordon Zahn. Gordon Zahn, co-founder of Pax Christi USA, is
the person most responsible for popularizing the story of
Franz Jaegerstaetter within the Roman Catholic
