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 will 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.
INTERNET
SOURCE: http://www.priestsforlife.org/preaching/vongalen41-08-03.htm
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The
Lion of Münster, Bishop Clemens August Graf von Galen
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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.
