On this date, August 3, 1941, Bishop Von Galen delivered The Third Sermon, preached in the Church of St. Lambert's on August
3rd, 1941, in which the Bishop attacks the Nazi practice of euthanasia and
condemns the ‘mercy killings’ taking place in his own diocese.
We, the
comrades of Unit 1012, remember this sermon every year on this date. We believe
that Von Galen would most likely speak out against the ACLU Demons and show
support for those victims’ families. Please hear these two previous sermons by
him on July 13 and 20, 1941.
The
Lion of Münster, Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen
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INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.priestsforlife.org/preaching/vongalen41-08-03.htm
SERMON
DELIVERED BY BISHOP CLEMENS AUGUST COUNT OF GALEN ON AUGUST 3, 1941
[The following is from the book, Cardinal
von Galen, by Rev. Heinrich Portmann, translated by R.L. Sedgwick, 1957,
pp. 239-246.]
The Third Sermon, preached in
the Church of St. Lambert's on August 3rd, 1941, in which the Bishop attacks
the Nazi practice of euthanasia and condemns the ‘mercy killings’ taking place
in his own diocese.
My Beloved Brethren,
In today's Gospel we read of an
unusual event: Our Saviour weeps. Yes, the Son of God sheds tears. Whoever
weeps must be either in physical or mental anguish. At that time Jesus was not
yet in bodily pain and yet here were tears. What depth of torment He must have
felt in His heart and Soul, if He, the bravest of men, was reduced to tears.
Why is He weeping? He is lamenting over Jerusalem, the holy city He loved so
tenderly, the capital of His race. He is weeping over her inhabitants, over His
own compatriots because they cannot foresee the judgment that is to overtake
them, the punishment which His divine prescience and justice have pronounced.
‘Ah, if thou too couldst understand, above all in this day that is granted
thee, the ways that can bring thee peace!’ Why did the people of Jerusalem not
know it? Jesus had given them the reason a short time before. ‘Jerusalem,
Jerusalem . . . how often have I been ready to gather thy children together, as
a hen gathers her chickens under her wings; and thou didst refuse it! I your
God and your King wished it, but you would have none of Me. . . .’ This is the
reason for the tears of Jesus, for the tears of God. . . . Tears for the
misrule, the injustice and man's willful refusal of Him and the resulting
evils, which, in His divine omniscience, He foresees and which in His justice
He must decree. . . . It is a fearful thing when man sets his will against the
will of God, and it is because of this that Our Lord is lamenting over
Jerusalem.
My faithful brethren! In the pastoral
letter drawn up by the German Hierarchy on the 26th of June at Fulda and
appointed to be read in all the churches of Germany on July 6th, it is
expressly stated: ‘According to Catholic doctrine, there are doubtless
commandments which are not binding when obedience to them requires too great a
sacrifice, but there are sacred obligations of conscience from which no one can
release us and which we must fulfil even at the price of death itself. At no
time, and under no circumstances whatsoever, may a man, except in war and in
lawful defence, take the life of an innocent person.’
When this pastoral was read on July
6th I took the opportunity of adding this exposition:
For the past several months it has
been reported that, on instructions from Berlin, patients who have been
suffering for a long time from apparently incurable diseases have been forcibly
removed from homes and clinics. Their relatives are later informed that the
patient has died, that the body has been cremated and that the ashes may be
claimed. There is little doubt that these numerous cases of unexpected death in
the case of the insane are not natural, but often deliberately caused, and
result from the belief that it is lawful to take away life which is
unworthy of being lived.
This ghastly doctrine tries to justify
the murder of blameless men and would seek to give legal sanction to the
forcible killing of invalids, cripples, the incurable and the incapacitated. I
have discovered that the practice here in Westphalia is to compile lists of
such patients who are to be removed elsewhere as ‘unproductive citizens,’ and
after a period of time put to death. This very week, the first group of these
patients has been sent from the clinic of Marienthal, near Münster.
Paragraph 21 of the Code of Penal Law
is still valid. It states that anyone who deliberately kills a man by a
premeditated act will be executed as a murderer. It is in order to protect the
murderers of these poor invalids—members of our own families—against this legal
punishment, that the patients who are to be killed are transferred from their
domicile to some distant institution. Some sort of disease is then given as the
cause of death, but as cremation immediately follows it is impossible for
either their families or the regular police to ascertain whether death was from
natural causes.
I am assured that at the Ministry of
the Interior and at the Ministry of Health, no attempt is made to hide the fact
that a great number of the insane have already been deliberately killed and
that many more will follow.
Article 139 of the Penal Code
expressly lays down that anyone who knows from a reliable source of any plot
against the life of a man and who does not inform the proper authorities or the
intended victim, will be punished. . . .
When I was informed of the intention
to remove patients from Marienthal for the purpose of putting them to death I
addressed the following registered letter on July 29th to the Public
Prosecutor, the Tribunal of Münster, as well as to the Head of the Münster
Police:
‘I have been informed this week that a
considerable number of patients from the provincial clinic of Marienthal are to
be transferred as citizens alleged to be "unproductive" to the
institution of Richenberg, there to be executed immediately; and that according
to general opinion, this has already been carried out in the case of other
patients who have been removed in like manner. Since this sort of procedure is
not only contrary to moral law, both divine and natural, but is also punishable
by death, according to Article 211 of the Penal Code, it is my bounden
obligation in accordance with Article 139 of the same Code to inform the authorities
thereof. Therefore I demand at once protection for my fellow countrymen who are
threatened in this way, and from those who purpose to transfer and kill them,
and I further demand to be informed of your decision.’
I have received no news up till now of
any steps taken by these authorities. On July 26th I had already written and
dispatched a strongly worded protest to the Provincial Administration of
Westphalia which is responsible for the clinics to which these patients have
been entrusted for care and treatment. My efforts were of no avail. The first
batch of innocent folk have left Marienthal under sentence of death, and I am
informed that no less than eight hundred cases from the institution of
Waestein have now gone. And so we must await the news that these wretched
defenceless patients will sooner or later lose their lives. Why? Not because
they have committed crimes worthy of death, not because they have attacked guardians
or nurses as to cause the latter to defend themselves with violence which would
be both legitimate and even in certain cases necessary, like killing an armed
enemy soldier in a righteous war.
No, these are not the reasons why
these unfortunate patients are to be put to death. It is simply because that
according to some doctor, or because of the decision of some committee, they
have no longer a right to live because they are ‘unproductive citizens’. The
opinion is that since they can no longer make money, they are obsolete
machines, comparable with some old cow that can no longer give milk or some
horse that has gone lame. What is the lot of unproductive machines and cattle?
They are destroyed. I have no intention of stretching this comparison further. The
case here is not one of machines or cattle which exist to serve men and furnish
them with plenty. They may be legitimately done away with when they can no
longer fulfil their function. Here we are dealing with human beings, with our
neighbours, brothers and sisters, the poor and invalids . . .
unproductive—perhaps! But have they, therefore, lost the right to live? Have
you or I the right to exist only because we are ‘productive’? If the principle
is established that unproductive human beings may be killed, then God help all
those invalids who, in order to produce wealth, have given their all and
sacrificed their strength of body. If all unproductive people may thus be
violently eliminated, then woe betide our brave soldiers who return
home, wounded, maimed or sick.
Once admit the right to kill
unproductive persons . . . then none of us can be sure of his life. We shall be
at the mercy of any committee that can put a man on the list of unproductives.
There will be no police protection, no court to avenge the murder and inflict
punishment upon the murderer. Who can have confidence in any doctor? He has but
to certify his patients as unproductive and he receives the command to kill. If
this dreadful doctrine is permitted and practised it is impossible to conjure
up the degradation to which it will lead. Suspicion and distrust will be sown
within the family itself. A curse on men and on the German people if we break
the holy commandment ‘Thou shalt not kill’ which was given us by God on Mount
Sinai with thunder and lightning, and which God our Maker imprinted on the
human conscience from the beginning of time! Woe to us German people if we not
only licence this heinous offence but allow it to be committed with impunity!
I will now give you a concrete example
of what is taking place here. A fifty-five-year-old peasant from a country
parish near Münster—I could give you his name—has been cared for in the clinic
of Marienthal for some years suffering from some mental derangement. He was not
hopelessly mad, in fact he could receive visitors and was always pleased to see
his family. About a fortnight ago he had a visit from his wife and a soldier
son who was home on leave from the front. The latter was devoted to his sick
father. Their parting was sad, for they might not see each other again as the
lad might fall in battle. As it happens this son will never set eyes on his
father again because he is on the list of the ‘unproductives’. A member of the
family who was sent to see the father at Marienthal was refused admission and
was informed that the patient had been taken away on the orders of the Council
of Ministers of National Defence. His whereabouts was unknown. The family would
receive official notification in due course. What will this notice contain?
Will it be like all the others, namely that the man is dead and that the ashes
of his body will be sent on the receipt of so much money to defray expenses?
And so the son who is now risking his life at the front for his German
compatriots will never again see his father. These are the true facts and the
names of all those concerned are available.
‘Thou shalt not kill.’ God engraved
this commandment on the souls of men long before any penal code laid down
punishment for murder, long before any court prosecuted and avenged homicide.
Cain, who killed his brother Abel, was a murderer long before courts or states
came into existence, and plagued by his conscience he confessed, ‘Guilt like
mine is too great to find forgiveness . . . and I shall wander over the earth,
a fugitive; anyone I meet will slay me.’
Because of His love for us God has
engraved these commandments in our hearts and has made them manifest to us.
They express the need of our nature created by God. They are the unchangeable
and fundamental truths of our social life grounded on reason, well pleasing to
God, healthful and sacred. God, Our Father, wishes by these precepts to gather
us, His children, about Him as a hen shelters her brood under her wings. If we
are obedient to His commands, then we are protected and preserved against the
destruction with which we are menaced, just as the chicks beneath the wings of
the mother. ‘Jerusalem, Jerusalem . . . how often have I been ready to gather
thy children together, as a hen gathers her chickens under her wings; and thou
didst refuse it!’
Does history again repeat itself here
in Germany, in our land of Westphalia, in our city of Münster? Where in Germany
and where, here, is obedience to the precepts of God? The eighth commandment
requires ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness against thy neighbour’. How often
do we see this commandment publicly and shamelessly broken? In the seventh
commandment we read, ‘Thou shalt not steal’. But who can say that property is
safe when our brethren, monks and nuns, are forcibly and violently despoiled of
their convents, and who now protects property if it is illegally sequestered
and not given back?
The sixth commandment tells us, ‘Thou
shalt not commit adultery’. Consider the instructions and assurances laid down
on the question of free love and child-bearing outside the marital law in the
notorious open letter of Rudolf Hess, who has since vanished, which appeared in
the Press. In this respect look at the immorality and indecency everywhere in
Münster today. Our young people have little respect for the propriety of dress
today. Thus is modesty, the custodian of purity, destroyed, and the way for
adultery lies open.
How do we observe the fourth
commandment which enjoins obedience and respect to parents and superiors?
Parental authority is at a low ebb and is constantly being enfeebled by the
demands made upon youth against the wishes of the parents. How can real respect
and conscientious obedience to the authority of the State be maintained, to say
nothing of the Divine commandments, if one is fighting against the one and only
true God and His Faith?
The first three commandments have long
counted for nothing in the public life of Germany and here also in Münster . .
.. The Sabbath is desecrated; Holy Days of Obligation are secularized and no
longer observed in the service of God. His name is made fun of, dishonoured and
all too frequently blasphemed. As for the first commandment, ‘Thou shalt not
have strange gods before me’, instead of the One, True, Eternal God, men have
created at the dictates of their whim, their own gods to adore Nature, the
State, the Nation or the Race. In the words of St. Paul, for many their god is
their belly, their ease, to which all is sacrificed down to conscience and
honour for the gratification of the carnal senses, for wealth and ambition.
Then we are not surprised that they should claim divine privileges and seek to
make themselves overlords of life and death.
‘And as He drew near, and caught sight
of the city, He wept over it, and said: "Ah, if thou too couldst understand,
above all in this day that is granted thee, the ways that can bring thee peace!
As it is, they are hidden from thy sight. The days will come upon thee when thy
enemies will fence thee round about, and encircle thee, and press thee hard on
every side, and bring down in ruin both thee and thy children that are in thee,
not leaving one stone of thee upon another; and all because thou didst not
recognize the time of My visiting thee."’
Jesus saw only the walls and towers of
the city of Jerusalem with His human eye, but with His divine prescience He saw
far beyond and into the inmost heart of the city and its inhabitants. He saw
its wicked obstinacy, terrible, sinful and cruel. Man, a transitory creature,
was opposing his mean will to the Will of God. That is the reason why Jesus
wept for this fearful sin and its inevitable punishment. God is not mocked.
Christians of Münster! Did the Son of
God in His omniscience see only Jerusalem and its people? Did He weep only on
their behalf? Is God the protector and Father of the Jews only? Is Israel alone
in rejecting His divine truth? Are they the only people to throw off the laws
of God and plunge headlong to ruin? Did not Jesus, Who sees everything, behold
also our German people, our land of Westphalia and the Lower Rhine, and our
city of Münster? Has He not also wept for us? For a thousand years He has
instructed us and our forbears in the Faith. He has led us by His law. He has
nourished us with His grace and has gathered us to Him as the hen does her
brood beneath its wings. Has the all-knowing Son of God seen that in our own
time He would have to pronounce on us that same dread sentence? ‘Not leaving
one stone of thee upon another; and all because thou didst not recognize the
time of My visiting thee.’ That would indeed be a terrible sentence.
My dearly Beloved, I trust that it is
not too late. It is time that we realized today what alone can bring us peace,
what alone can save us and avert the divine wrath. We must openly, and without
reserve, admit our Catholicism. We must show by our actions that we will live
our lives by obeying God's commandments. Our motto must be: Death rather than
sin. By pious prayer and penance we can bring down upon us all, our city and
our beloved German land, His grace and forgiveness.
But those who persist in inciting the
anger of God, who revile our Faith, who hate His commandments, who associate
with those who alienate our young men from their religion, who rob and drive
out our monks and nuns, who condemn to death our innocent brothers and sisters,
our fellow human beings, we shun absolutely so as to remain undefiled by their
blasphemous way of life, which would lay us open to that just punishment which
God must and will inflict upon all those who, like the thankless Jerusalem,
oppose their wishes to those of God.
O my God, grant to us all now on this
very day, before it is too late, a true realization of the things that are for
peace. O Sacred Heart of Jesus, oppressed even unto tears by the blindness and
sins of men, help us by Thy grace to seek always what is pleasing to Thee and
reject what is displeasing, so that we may dwell in Thy Love and find rest in
our souls. Amen.
Hartheim
Euthanasia Centre
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Münster Cathedral |
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