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The Legacy of Franz Jagerstatter
Two weeks ago, on October 26, 2007, an astonishing event happened in the Catholic Church. Anti-war hero Franz Jagerstatter was beatified, (that is, officially recognized as "blessed" by God), in the Cathedral in Linz, Austria. This event, ignored by religious and mainstream media in the U.S., was for me, one of the most political and best events in the institutional Church in recent decades, and a real sign of hope. The church was declaring publicly that nearly all Catholics of Austria and Germany, including Joseph Ratzinger, now the Pope, were wrong, that this uneducated farmer was right, and that we are all called to live and practice the radical nonviolence of the peacemaking Jesus. The political implications of this event for Catholics around the world are staggering, and very exciting.
The witness of Franz Jagerstatter has been with me nearly all my life. My grandmother gave me a booklet about Franz when I was a student at Duke University in the late 1970s, trying to decide what to do with my life. I was stunned by this story of a young father, husband, and farmer, born on May 20, 1907, who was called into active service by the Nazis in February, 1943, politely refused, was imprisoned in Linz, condemned to death for "undermining military morale," and beheaded on August 9, 1943. His witness encouraged me to become a Jesuit and an advocate for peace, justice and nonviolence. "Consider two things: from where, to where," Franz wrote his godson from prison, just a few weeks before his execution. "Then your life will have its true meaning." I've been trying to take his good advice.
In 1985, I read Gordon Zahn's ground-breaking biography, "In Solitary Witness," while living in a refugee camp in El Salvador. In the 1990s, I made a pilgrimage to St. Radegund to pray at Franz' grave and visit his widow Franziska and the Jagerstatter family.
On the night before the celebration, nearly a hundred Pax Christi members from Austria, England and the U.S. gathered for a meal and reflections on Franz's life. The two hour Mass on Friday morning was broadcast live on national TV in Austria and Germany. At one point, 94 year-old Franziska presented a gold box of his relics, kissed them, gave them for the altar, then wept. She knows now that Franz no longer belongs to Austria. Now he belongs to the world.
Franz he is still a force of controversy throughout Austria, but he is the closest saint in recent centuries to resemble those daring, early Christians. If we accept the social and political implications of this ceremony, then no Catholic can ever again support war. Every Catholic has to obey the nonviolent Jesus, resist the culture of war, speak out for peace, work for justice, and combine the full mystical and political dimensions of faith and nonviolence.
During those days of celebration, many of us in the U.S. delegation talked about a dream which Franz had in 1938 which pushed him to say No to war. One night, he dreamt of a beautiful train and huge crowds rushing to board it. Then he heard a voice saying, "This train is going to hell!" Next he saw a vision of many people suffering. He awoke terrified and told Franziska, then later wrote about it from prison. The dream, he wrote, was about Nazi patriotism, idolatry and warmaking.
But I wonder if his nightmare was about all patriotism, idolatry and warmaking, our global rush to violence, killing, war and nuclear weapons. His dream describes our quiet, steady support for American imperialism, military domination, war on Iraq and Afghanistan, corporate greed, environmental destruction, and ignoring the cry of the world's poor. Franz wrote fiercely about the loss of our soul. We are losing our souls and we don't know it, he said. "I would like to call out to everyone who is riding in this train: 'Jump out before this train reaches its destination, even if it costs you your life!'"
That is what many of us are saying today. Like Franz, we're trying not to get on the train to hell, even though crowds rush to board it. We're crying out, "Don't get on this train. Don't support the culture of war. Don't make nuclear weapons at Los Alamos. Don't spend your life becoming rich while 900 million starve. Don't worship the flag of empire. Become a conscientious objector, a nonviolent resister, a public peacemaker."
But what astonishes me most is that Franz didn't just reason his way to oppose an unjust war (which is what most good people conclude about him: he realized that Nazi warfare was unjust, so he refused to fight, and did the right thing.) I believe Franz went much farther. With Franziska, he climbed the heights of faith, the kind that moves mountains. "He prayed all day long," one of his cellmates testified. He received the sacraments, gave to those in need, spoke out as necessary, tried to teach his priests and bishops, prepared for death and did all things for the honor of the God of love. He became a person of deep mystical prayer, and made the connection between Gospel politics and Gospel spirituality. By the time of his death, I submit, Franz understood that to follow the nonviolent Jesus and give one's entire life to God meant that you could never kill, support war, or compromise with evil. Most of us today are a long way from making that connection.
"Just as those who believe in Nazism tell themselves that their struggle is for survival," he wrote from prison, "so must we, too, convince ourselves that our struggle is for God's eternal reign. But with this difference: we need no rifles or pistols for our battle but, instead, spiritual weapons...Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us. For love will conquer and will endure for all eternity. And happy are they who live and die in God's love."
On the morning of his death, Father Albert Jochmann, the pastor of Brandenburg, visited Franz in his cell. He offered Franz a Bible. "I am completely united with God and any reading would disrupt my union with God," Franz said to the priest's amazement. That day, he wrote to Franziska in his last letter, "The heart of Jesus, the heart of Mary and my heart are one, united for time and eternity."
Who dares say such a thing? The recent collection of letters by Mother Teresa, which I read on the plane to Austria, testify clearly that she never felt such union with God. Few do. Franz did. It was the natural culmination of his steadfast, wholehearted pursuit of God and God's reign of peace, which required both nonviolent resistance to idolatry, empire and war, and full-time devotion to prayer, worship and nonviolent love. As the world's violence worsens, I think Franz will emerge as one of history's greatest saints.
Franz never gave up on the church, even though every single priest, pastor, chaplain and bishop he knew advised him to fight for the Nazis, for the sake of his wife and children. He held his ground, felt sad, and prayed for them. On the day of his execution, Father Jochmann told Franz about an Austrian priest, Fr. Franz Reinisch, who had recently been executed for refusing to fight. This report consoled Franz a great deal. (Now we know that some 4,000 priests were killed by the Nazis.) Like Franz, we have to reach out and convert every priest, pastor, bishop and cardinal who supports war, nuclear weapons, and patriotic imperialism to the Gospel wisdom of active love, nonviolent resistance and steadfast peacemaking.
Unlike Franz Jagerstatter, we do not have to do this work alone. Yes, we may be harassed, even arrested and imprisoned, but unlike Franz, we will not be alone. We can join and form communities of peace and justice to help each other take a stand for peace, support one another, and speak out in one voice against our nation's wars and injustices. Together, we can build movements to say our No to the School of the Americas, the U.S. war on Iraq, threats against Iran, and nuclear weapons at Los Alamos, and like Franz, help one another plumb the mystical depths of Gospel nonviolence until we, too, are completely united with Jesus, Mary and the God of peace.
"We must do everything in our power to strive toward the Eternal Homeland and to preserve a good conscience," Franz wrote from prison. "Though we must bear our daily sorrows and reap little reward in this world for doing so, we can still become richer than millionaires--for those who need not fear death are the richest and happiest of all And these riches are there for the asking." "There have always been heroes and martyrs who gave their lives for Christ and their faith. If we hope to reach our goal some day, then we, too, must become heroes of the faith."
"If one harbors no thought of vengeance against others and can forgive everyone," he wrote, "he will be at peace in his heart--and what is there in all this world more lovely than peace? Let us pray to God that a real and lasting peace may soon descend upon this world."
"A prophet with a global view and a penetrating insight." "A shining example in his fidelity to the claims of his conscience." "An advocate of nonviolence and peace, a voice of warning against ideologies, a deep-believing person for whom God really was the core and center of life." This is how the Bishop of Linz described blessed Franz. Let's take heart from the life and witness of Franz Jagerstatter, be encouraged by the turn of events in Austria, and carry on like him in our steadfast stand against war and for a new world of peace.
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19 Comments so far
Show AllBestiality rules nature. If humanism ruled nature, we would be God.
Thank you John Dear for this lovely, inspiring piece.
Imagine how much more good Franz could have done for humanity if he hadn't bought into "The Invisible Cloud Being."
"Franz never gave up on the church, even though every single priest, pastor, chaplain and bishop he knew advised him to fight for the Nazis, for the sake of his wife and children."
And where was god during all this? Oh, that's right... the church sided with the NAZIS during WWII... what a GREAT organization, and certainly one worth being part of. After all, god's name was on their belt buckles.
"With Franziska, he climbed the heights of faith, the kind that moves mountains."
What does that mean? No mountains were moved, nothing changed, except that one man believed enough in something pretend that... what? What are "the heights of faith?" That doesn't actually mean anything in the real world.
I don't like war, either. I wouldn't fight, not because I'm afraid of the morality of a pretend deity, but because it's wrong to kill other folks. I didn't need a god to tell me that.
It's sad that when your church is in decline, you make more people saints, like that's going to help a 2000 year-old mythology full of child-rapists from going extinct.
Given the weapons of destruction (in 1914, Krupp's "Big Bertha" 42cm howitzer - in 2007, Trident) that we have now, we can't afford NOT to have a World without war. But if we even as individuals will it, we can have it. When Bush and Blair play russian roulette with other people's lives, the one kind of person they fear most is someone like Franz Jägerstätter, who sees that the so-called "emperors" have no clothes.
I've had the honour of meeting with Frau Franziska Jägerstätter twice. Her Penelope-like loyalty to her husband is an inspiration - a LADY in the truest sense of the word.
To stand alone takes courage.
What beautiful and inspiring story! I'm grateful to know about Franz.
Conscience, it seems, is a personal journey; one which must be undertaken by each individual rather than collectively.
Until more are willing to take the journey toward living as people of conscience, holding themselves to the standards they expect of others, we will have war.
The journey to conscience is difficult because it is one that must be undertaken alone - too many people allow the influence of others to keep them from finding their own voice.
Franz Jagerstatter found his own voice. It didn't make him a hero - it just gave him peace. Unfortunately, those who had not learned what peace meant could not leave him alone to enjoy what he had worked so hard to find.
We cannot give peace to others until we have found it for ourselves - and even then it is not peace we are able to give but merely the opportunity for others to find what we have come to know.
We cannot force peace -
To stand alone is when you know you really believe something is right. To stand alone when it takes such courage, that is rare. To stand alone till the very end takes a saint.
Sometimes taking a stand is just wanting to 'preserve a good conscience'. To oppose what is wrong... sometimes it comes down to us.
St. Jagerstatter help us to have the courage to take our stands now before it gets so late that only the bravest could ever dare to stand alone. When it gets that late ...then only a Jagerstatter would have the courage and faith to take a stand.
St. Jagerstatter help us preserve a good conscience and take a stand while we are yet unfraid to stand together... and not let it become so late that most will then be afraid to stand... alone.
St. Jagerstatter - Patron saint of draft resisters and anti-war protestors and of those who take a stand.
This story reminds me of the old saying,"If you don't stand for something, then you will fall for anything". That this man was a Roman Catholic or even that he is now being honored by that institutiona is irrelevent. The current Pope (one of whose nickknames is "the Panzer Pope" due to his membership in and alliegence to the Hitler Youth among other dispicable things)certainly proves that being a Roman Catholic carries no special virtue.
What is relevent is that this man in the name of his faith in the teachings of Jesus Christ, refused to do evil and willingly paid with his life for that refusal. To borrow the famous retort of Shylock in "The Merchant of Venice" at his anti-semetic tormentors,"I have learned your lesson well and shall better the instruction."
Franz Jagerstatter learned the lessons taught him by a hypocritical, faithless, Austrian Roman Catholic heirarchy (which counseled him at every turn to go along to get along) and by their own admission 60+ years after the fact "bettered their instruction" with his martyrdom whose example inspired other priests to similarly offer their lives to keep from serving the Nazi death machine.
"If one harbors no thought of vengeance against others and can forgive everyone," he wrote, "he will be at peace in his heart . . ."
The truly wise even forgive God's sins.
While this history is important, it's very special nature tends to obfuscate its relevance today. Sainthood is not a particularly rare quality in humans, but is simply rarely acknowledged....
What the world needs now is a critical mass of war resisters, more and more a reality..... As our species sees the results of the insane culture we have together created, we will finally come to our senses, and do a radical reformation. Perhaps most of us will have to die for this eventuality, but in the final scheme of things this will perhaps be seen in a benevolent light. Let us pray that the damage we have done is not so destructive that our planet be fatally impacted for more than a few centuries. Let us pray that solutions to our suicidal manias come quickly, and that all sentient beings on earth soon rejoice in the great cosmic dance .....
Thanks for the story! Makes we want to thank:
Code Pink,
Cindy Sheenan
Army Lt. Ehren Watada
The Retired Generals who spoke out
Countless service men and women who spoke out
Rep. Walter B. Jones Jr.
The 23 senators who voted against the war in 2002
Carlos Arredondo
Gold Star Families
couragetoresist.org
How many other I can't say but each story like this leaves a small light of hope which I at least desperately need as this country slides downward.
VDB says, "The truly wise even forgive God's sins." Your view of god is one based on some strange conjecture. Evidently you hold 'god' responsible for this earth and its events orchestrated by HUMAN free will. That's what earth school 101 is about... God is what is inside of us, we are made from that Divine spark of Creation. The spiritually enlightened ones who have come as teachers have left behind an ethos to live by, but instead followers led by corrupt power-based egomaniacs use the NAME of the teacher to wage war, destroy others, and invert every genuine spiritual principle.
Do not blame 'god' for what human beings do. God is beyond what our limited intellects and senses can even begin to imagine. Endowing Deity with human flaws is narcissistic nonsense.
ESTEBANDIDO: Apart from DU and it's power to be the 'gift' that keeps on giving... the destruction wrought by World Wars I & II led to the Marshall Plan and a healed relationship between Germany, Japan, US and Europe.
Vietnam forgave US trespasses and now is a trading partner. Their Buddhist traditions deeply aided that spiritual process of healing.
It may not take generations, is my point. Call me optimistic today, it's almost new moon in Scorpio, the sign of alchemy, healing & transformation... those powers brought on by forgiveness, the singular teaching of ALL the MASTERS. Good thing to practice, although I admit, I cannot impart it to Bush or Cheney, etc. Probably because when Christ forgave, he also instructed the ones to whom mercy was offered, the lesson that they stop doing what they are doing. If we saw actions oriented towards repentance on the part of these offspring of Mestopheles, I might be able to manage.
"Franz never gave up on the church, even though every single priest, pastor, chaplain and bishop he knew advised him to fight for the Nazis. . ."
Sounds like the definition of fanaticism to me. A rational individual would have given up his delusions much earlier, and would have prayed that his co-religionists burned in hell--as they rightfully deserved.
Dear WmC,
Franz was only one of the reasons not to give up on the church. He was one of many others who trod the martyrs' road. Do Websearches on:
Hermann Wehrll, a German Army Chaplain - hung in August 1944 for refusal to break the seal of the confessional, when it emerged that Walther von Leonrod (one of the July plotters) confessed to him his part in the conspiracy;
Johannes Prassek, Hermann Lange and Joseph Metzger (plus Protestant Pastor Eduard Stellbrink), three Catholic Priests and martyrs of Lübeck, guillotined for speaking against and disseminating the truth against Hitler in December 1942;
Karl Leisner, a Catholic Priest, who after being ordained in secret in Dachau celebrated his only mass. Karl had spoken out against Hitler 6 years before. He died of TB 3 months after the liberation.
These are but 3 cases I can think of from memory. If indeed these people, like Franz, were "irrational", then the Church should thank God (for its own sake) that they were!
Read about them and reflect.
Why has no one equated Franz Jagersttater's name with Michael New, my hero, the U.S. Army soldiar who merely refused to wear a United Nations uniform and was dishonorably discharged. Our corrupt court system was afraid to rule favorably with the arguments presented by his outstanding lawyer, Herb Titus, and said a soldiar's oath on joining the military is no defense for disobeying a commander's order. Did Michael New enter the Army for patriot dream ideals, or was it because he would gain monetarilly, or was it because he would be forced to spend time in prison for some crime if he did not enlist? The only forgivness our soldiars in Iraq are offered forgivness for is such things as sniper baiting of innocent Iraqies and other such attrocities. The commanders care little about principle during the present Empire building occupational force endeavor. History is written by the winner of the military conflict, and we, the U.S., ain't agonna win in Bush and his Republican Party lap dog's Middle East campaign. And that comming from a Libertarian Party supporter.
SIOUXROSE - you wrote to me:
Your view of god is one based on some strange conjecture.
My reply:
Everyone's is.
If a divine spark makes us human it is one of our attributes.
To recognize this is not narcicistic.
When we forgives god's sins we forgive ourselves.
Not always easy.
And nothing about me is evident.
"Yes, we may be harassed, even arrested and imprisoned, but unlike Franz, we will not be alone."
I think perhaps Franz didn't feel alone.
Whether he is a 'Servant of God' or 'Venerable' or 'Blessed' or otherwise in the present view of his Church, he did what he believed was right and correct as witness to God.
Beatification of Franz Jagerstatter - "one of the most political and best events in the institutional Church in recent decades, and a real sign of hope." Well said! Yes.