Franz Stock
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Abbé Franz Stock (21 September 1904, Neheim – 24 February 1948, Paris) was a German Roman Catholic priest.
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[edit] Life
Franz Stock was born as the first of nine children of a worker family in Neheim, Germany, on September 21, 1904. He went to a Catholic elementary school from 1910 to 1913, expressing for the first time his wish to become a priest at twelve years old. He studied theology from 1926 to 1932, and participated to the theological academy in Paderborn. In 1926, he participated to an international peace meeting in Bierville near Paris, which had been organized by Marc Sangnier under the motto "Peace via the youths!" He then made the acquaintance of Joseph Folliet, who greatly influenced him. Later on, he studied at the Institut Catholique in Paris, and became a member of the "Compagnons de Saint Francois (The fellowman of saint Francis).
He was ordinated to the subdiaconate on March 15, 1931. He was then ordinated to the priesthood on March 12, 1932, by the archbishop of Paderborn Kaspar Klein, and held his first activity as priest from 1932 to 1934 in Effeln, near Lippstadt, and in Dortmund-Eving. In 1934 he was appointed as rector of the German Bonifatius-parish in Paris.
A few days before the outbreak of World War II on September 1, 1939, he returned to Germany, where he officiated as a priest in Dortmund-Bodelschwingh and in Klein-Wanzleben in central Germany. On August 13, 1940, he was named as priest for Germans residing in Paris during Nazi Germany's occupation of France, and returned in October 1940 to Paris. In 1941, he started to work as an abbot in the Fresnes Prison, La Santé Prison and Cherche-Midi Prison in Paris. He was also a chaplain at the execution site at the Mont Valérien during Vichy France, owing him his nickname L'Aumonier en enfer (The chaplain in hell) and L'Archange de l'enfer (The archangel of hell). Often, because of his German nationality, he was the only priest who could freely visit the prisoners without being a part of the Nazi war apparatus. He then met with more than 2,000 prisoners, among whom the Navy officer Honoré d’Estienne d’Orves, the Communist Gabriel Péri and the Gaullist Edmond Michelet [1]. As part of his pastoral mission, and with great peril to his life, he passed messages from the prisoners to their families and back, sometimes memorizing them. Exploiting every possible avenue to help the prisoners, he delivered German information on them to their families, so as to prepare them when interrogated. The information thus delivered prevented many arrests. This he did under a double threat to his life: besides the obvious peril of arrest, incarceration and/or execution if discovered, Stock suffered severe heart disease (a fact he kept from others) and thus had been ordered to rest. Nevertheless, he went on in his endeavor.
On June 10, 1941, he was officially acknowledged as priest for the military post as subsidiary office. At the entrance of Charles de Gaulle in Paris on August 25, 1944, the abbot Stock was in the Hospital La Pitié, where more than 600 wounded German soldiers together with 200 English and American soldiers were lying, not fit for transport. When the Americans took into command the hospital the Abbé Franz Stock became an American Prisoner of War in the camp of Cherbourg. This he did out of his own free will, for it enabled him to help those who now needed most his services - the defeated German POWs. The Aumônerie Générale in Paris contacted him there, planning to set up a seminary for captured German Catholic students of theology. Shortly thereafter Abbé Stock was asked to head this seminary as managing director, supported in particular by the Gaullist Edmond Michelet [1]. The POW Camp Dépôt 51 in Orléans was intended for it.
On April 24, 1945, the Abbé Le Meur accompanied him to Orléans, where there were already 28 students of theology awaiting them. On August 19, 1945, Raoul-Octove-Marie-Jean Harscouët,the bishop of Chartres, accompanied by his secretary the Abbé Pierre André, paid a visit to the POW seminary. Later he visited the camp repeatedly and addressed the seminarists always with "Mes Chers enfants (My Dear Children). On September 18, 1945, the Nuncio Roncalli (future Pope John XXIII), arrived for a longer visit at the camp. On July 16, 1946, the Nuncio visited the POW seminary once more, emphasizing:
| “ | The seminary of Chartres is praiseworthy for both countries, France as well as Germany. It is very well suitable to become a sign of understanding and reconciliation. | ” |
From 1945 onwards till 1947 he was managing director of the POW seminary behind barbed wire of Chartres. On May 14, 1947, the Cardinal Suhard of Paris visited the seminary, which was closed on June 5, 1947. 949 lecturers, priests, brothers and seminarists had been at the seminary. During the evacuation only 369 were still there.
On December 16, 1947, the Abbot Stock received the notification about his appointment as honorary doctor of the University at Freiburg i. Br. He died unexpectedly on February 24, 1948 in the hospital Cochin in Paris. His funerals were held four days later, with Nuncio Roncalli carrying out the consecration of the dead. Only about 12 people gave him the last escort at the cemetery Thiais.
On June 15/16, 1963 his corpse was transferred to Chartres in the newly built church Saint Jean-Baptiste. Pope John Paul II during his visit to Germany, November 18, 1981, in Fulda, mentioned the name Franz Stock along with the names of grand saints of the German history.
On 1st March, 1998, the commemoration of the anniversary for his 50th day of death was held in the cathedral of Chartres. The archbishop of Paris, Cardinal Lustiger, celebrated in the presence of many French and German bishops the Pontifical High Mass, with the attendance of Monsieur Monory, President of the French Senate and also Helmut Kohl, Chancellor of the Federal Republic of Germany, who beforehand had laid down a wreath on Stock's grave [2] [3].
[edit] Quotes
- "Abbé Franz Stock — that is no name, it is a program!" Nuntius Angelo Roncalli, who became later Pope John XXIII, said this on February 28, 1948, when carrying out the blessing of the deceased priest. During July 1962, he repeated these words in front of an international pilgrim group.
| “ | ...the priest Franz Stock, we said so on the day of his funeral, when bestowing absolutio ad tumbam — this is not only a name — it is a program. Now after fourteen years have passed, we do wish to repeat the very same words. | ” |
- Joseph Folliet said about him:
| “ | There are, I believe, only a few Christian life stories which have given to the Catholicism of the church and peace of Christ such a direct and lasting effect and rendered such a surviving testimony for the future, like the one of Franz Stock. | ” |
[edit] References
- ^ a b L'émouvante fresque du Séminaire des barbelés, Pélerin, 17 June 2004 (French)
- ^ Kohl honours German priest in France, BBC News, March 1, 1998 (English)
- ^ Information des Elysee: http://www.elysee.fr/elysee/elysee.fr/francais_archives/interventions/lettres_et_messages/1998/fevrier/lettre_adressee_a_m_helmut_kohl_a_propos_de_sa_venue_a_chartres_pour_participer_a_la_messe_celebree_a_la_memoire_de_l_abbe_stock.106.html
