Limburg, Germany, Sep 19, 2019 / 11:06 am
The 'secret preacher of block 17' who witnessed to Christ in a Nazi concentration camp was beatified this week in Limburg, Germany.
Blessed Father Richard Henkes was a German Pallottine priest denounced by the Nazis for his outspoken preaching. He died in Dachau concentration camp in 1945 while caring for prisoners sick with typhus.
"The real reformers of the Church are the blessed and the saints," said Cardinal Kurt Koch at Henkes' beatification on Sept. 19. "For we can only achieve the utmost externally, in structural terms, when we are also prepared to strive to achieve our utmost internally, in faith."
"Love is not without sacrifice," Koch said. "The Christian martyrdom is only real if it is realized as the supreme act of love for God and for one's brothers and sisters."