An Ordination in Dachau

During the English Recusant period the missionary priests had travelled to Rome, Reims, Douai, or Vallidolid for their seminary training and ordination. We know that some of the martyrs joined the Jesuit order or expressed the hopes of becoming Jesuits after they were arrested and imprisoned. Francis Phillips writes in The Catholic Herald about a secret ordination in Dachau, where 2,759 priests and seminarians were imprisoned (and 1,034 died) between 1938 and 1945. Karl Leisner had been sent there because he made a disparaging comment about Hitler:

On 14 December 1941, he was moved to Dachau and assigned to the priests’ block. Under the harsh conditions of the camp his TB worsened and his hopes of being ordained a priest seemed unachievable. Then, as Providence would have it, Bishop Gabriel Piguet of Clermont-Ferrand arrived in Dachau as a fellow-prisoner on 6 September 1944 – and only a bishop is authorised to confer the sacrament of ordination. This was duly requested for Leisner by a Belgian priest, Fr de Coninck.

Bishop Piguet agreed, on condition that the ordination was authorised by the bishop with whom Leisner was affiliated and also that of the Archbishop of Munich, as Dachau was in his diocese. These authorisations were obtained clandestinely through the good offices of a young woman, Josefa Imma Mack (she was later to become a nun). She used to visit the plant shop at the edge of the compound at Dachau, where flowers and food grown by the prisoners was sold to the public, and where she was able to communicate with priest-prisoners assigned to work there.

She smuggled in the necessary letters of approval, along with the holy oil, a stole and the ritual books. The ordination, on 17 December 1944, took place in the chapel in Block 26 in great secrecy. Zeller records that the ceremony “made a lasting impression on the priests who were present.” The Bishop’s violet cassock was made from fabric from stocks pillaged by the Germans; the mitre was made by Fr Albert Durand, the only British priest at Dachau. Several hundred clergymen supported the young deacon, who wore an alb over his striped prison clothes.

Please read the rest there. Phillips reviewed the book from which this story is taken here. The Priest Barracks: Dachau, 1938-1945 by Guillaume Zeller is published by Ignatius Press. Pope Saint John Paul II beatified Leisner on 23 June 1996.

May 30, 1847

Mr. John Henry Newman, former Church of England clergyman, was ordained to the Catholic priesthood on Trinity Sunday, May 30, 1847 in Rome. (Bishop James D. Conley, Auxiliary Bishop of Denver, celebrates his third anniversary of ordination to the episcopate this year on the same date!--he was formerly pastor of my parish.) Newman had studied for ordination at the Propaganda Fidei. Part of his preparation had been the discernment of a particular path for his priestly vocation and he had chosen the Oratory of St. Philip Neri. This book by Placid Murray is very helpful to understanding why Blessed John Henry Newman decided to bring the Oratory Movement to England; for one thing he sought a community where his erstwhile Tractarians could be united.

When Pope Benedict XVI beatified Newman during his visit to England last September, he highlighted the Blessed's role as a priest in Birmingham:

While it is John Henry Newman’s intellectual legacy that has understandably received most attention in the vast literature devoted to his life and work, I prefer on this occasion to conclude with a brief reflection on his life as a priest, a pastor of souls. The warmth and humanity underlying his appreciation of the pastoral ministry is beautifully expressed in another of his famous sermons: "Had Angels been your priests, my brethren, they could not have condoled with you, sympathized with you, have had compassion on you, felt tenderly for you, and made allowances for you, as we can; they could not have been your patterns and guides, and have led you on from your old selves into a new life, as they can who come from the midst of you" ("Men, not Angels: the Priests of the Gospel", Discourses to Mixed Congregations, 3). He lived out that profoundly human vision of priestly ministry in his devoted care for the people of Birmingham during the years that he spent at the Oratory he founded, visiting the sick and the poor, comforting the bereaved, caring for those in prison. No wonder that on his death so many thousands of people lined the local streets as his body was taken to its place of burial not half a mile from here. One hundred and twenty years later, great crowds have assembled once again to rejoice in the Church’s solemn recognition of the outstanding holiness of this much-loved father of souls. What better way to express the joy of this moment than by turning to our heavenly Father in heartfelt thanksgiving, praying in the words that Blessed John Henry Newman placed on the lips of the choirs of angels in heaven:

Praise to the Holiest in the height
And in the depth be praise;
In all his words most wonderful,
Most sure in all his ways!
(The Dream of Gerontius).