The Catholic Church is set to elevate Dutch Carmelite friar Titus Brandsma to sainthood, the Omrop Fryslân reports. Pope Francis will hold a Consistory to sanctify Brandsma and two other Catholic figures on Friday, March 4.
Born in Oegeklooster, in the Province of Friesland, in 1881, Titus Brandsma was a priest and author who opposed and spoke out against Nazism before World War II.
Brandsma taught theology at the Catholic University of Nijmegen. He was also a popular speaker and newspaper journalist who defended the rights of the Catholic press, urging papers not to print German propaganda. He denounced Nazism as “a sewer of falsehood that must not be tolerated,” and refused to expel Jewish children from Catholic schools. When Germany invaded the Netherlands, the Carmelite friar was arrested and sent to Dachau where he was killed with a lethal injection.
Pope John Paul II beatified Brandsma in 1985, the first step toward sainthood, saying that he “answered hate with love.”
