War bishop’s cause on track

THE CATHOLIC Church recognised the heroic virtues of Cardinal Clemens August Graf von Galen, an important opponent of Nazism in Germany.
The recognition moves him a step closer to beatification. Von Galen was named bishop of Münster in 1933, the year Hitler came to power.
From the start of his episcopal ministry, the bishop opposed the regime’s policies against the Church, as well as the introduction of neopagan rites. His energetic preaching earned him the nickname “Lion of Münster.” In 1934 he refuted the thesis of Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg and, in 1937 the prelate worked to spread Pope Pius XI’s encyclical Mit Brennender Sorge, aimed at Nazism. On several occasions, beginning in 1941, he declared himself against the euthanasia of mentally ill people, as well as against the racial policy of the Nazi regime.