Pope Francis on Sunday proclaimed 10 new saints, including Carmelite friar Titus Brandsma, during a canonization Mass in the Vatican’s St. Peter’s Square.
It was the Catholic Church’s first canonization since October 2019, Catholic News Agency reports.
Born in Oegeklooster in 1881, Brandsma was a priest and author who spoke out against Nazism before World War II.
Brandsma taught theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He was also a popular public speaker and newspaper journalist who defended the rights of the Catholic press and opposed German propaganda effort. He denounced Nazi ideology as “a sewer of falsehood that must not be tolerated” and called on Catholic schools not to expel Jewish children. When Germany invaded the Netherlands, the friar was arrested and sent to the Dachau concentration camp where he was killed with a lethal injection.
Pope John Paul II beatified Brandsma in 1985, clearing the way to the first step toward sainthood for him. When the pontiff declared the Carmelite priest Blessed, he said that Titus “answered hate with love”.
