Vatican City, Mar 21, 2017 / 02:01 am
Italian layman Joseph Mayr-Nusser who refused to take the Hitler oath was beatified March 18 in his home town of Bolsano.
In 1944, Mayr-Nusser, a Catholic husband and father, refused to take the oath of allegiance to Hitler after being drafted into the German army. He died on the way to Dachau concentration camp, to which he had been sentenced.
On Sunday, Pope Francis said that Blessed Joseph is a model for all laymen and fathers "on account of his great moral and spiritual stature."
Joseph was born on Dec. 27, 1910 to a devout family. Since his family was poor and his older brother Jakob was in seminary studying for the priesthood, Mayr-Nusser didn't study himself, but worked on the farm and later as the clerk for the Eccel company in Bolzano.