Josef Beran

Cardinal Josef Beran ( born December 29, 1888 in Pilsen, Bohemia, † May 17, 1969 in Rome) was archbishop of Prague.

Career

After having attained university entrance Josef Beran studied in Pilsen, and then at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, the subjects Catholic theology and philosophy. On June 10, 1911 he was ordained a priest in Rome. After his return, he worked as a chaplain in the Archdiocese of Prague. Since 1917, he taught religious education at the educational institution of the Congregation of the School Sisters of St.. Anna in Prague. From 1929 he taught pastoral theology at the Archbishop's Seminary in Prague, the rain, he was in 1932. The Theological Faculty of Charles University appointed him professor.

After the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, Josef Beran was arrested in June 1942 by the Nazis as a hostage, first in Prague Pankrác prison, and afterwards imprisoned in the concentration camps Theresienstadt and Dachau. After the war he returned to the Prague seminary, where he was again employed as rain.

In the Dachau concentration camp, Josef Beran met the Pallotine Father Richard Henkes, SAC, who arrived there in the care of sick typhoid Czechs lost their lives. The Czech Bishops' Conference was unanimously in 2000 for the beatification of the two Nazi victims as examples of German-Czech reconciliation from.

Archbishop of Prague

After the Prague archbishop chair had been vacant since 1941, Pope Pius XII. Josef Beran on November 4, 1946 Archbishop of Prague. He received his episcopal consecration on December 8, 1946, the then Apostolic Nuncio to Czechoslovakia, Archbishop Saverio Ritter.

After the overthrow of bourgeois democracy in February 1948 and the takeover of Czechoslovakia by the Communists, the new regime steered a repressive rate against the Catholic Church. Catholic publications were banned, confiscated Catholic publishers, Catholic schools were closed. The Vatican was declared an enemy, and reported the nuncio from Prague.

Beran criticized the anti-clerical measures of the new government. This intentional, with the so-called Catholic Action to convert the Catholic Church into a national, separated from Rome Church. The archbishop issued a pastoral letter in which he refused to submit to the communist regime the church. After he had criticized the anti-clerical measures in the Strahov Abbey the day before he was arrested on 19 June 1949 and isolated from its surroundings. In October 1949, the regime established a state church office, which covers the whole life of the Church should be monitored and controlled. 1950 all religious orders were sent to concentration monasteries or re-education camps, where they were accused of espionage and working for the Vatican. Beran was initially at the Archbishop's palace under house arrest. From 1950-1963 he lived under house arrest to an ever changing, undisclosed locations. Even after the official release in 1963 he was not allowed to return to Prague. Furthermore, he was under surveillance by state security authorities.

Exile

After Josef Beran in 1965 by Pope Paul VI. cardinal priest with the titular church of Santa Croce was appointed in via Flaminia in the College of Cardinals, he managed the Vatican diplomacy to achieve Beran's departure to Rome. He was then directed by the Czechoslovak government under Antonín Novotný in the country. A return was not possible.

In Rome Josef Beran took part in the last session of the Second Vatican Council. There he gave a notable speech on the conscience and religious freedom of all faiths. In Rome, he founded the " Czech Religious center Velehrad ". Out of concern for the faithful entrusted to them, he had the Pope several times offered his resignation to this but always refused. 1965 the Pope appointed the bishop consecrated in 1949 secret Frantisek Tomasek administrator of the Archdiocese of Prague.

Even at the time of the Prague Spring to Beran's hope for a return to Prague was not met. After the self-immolation January Palach in January 1969 Vatican Radio radiated a speech Beran, in which he turned to his home country. On May 17, the year he died in Rome. The Communist government of Czechoslovakia allowed the transfer of his body back home not. Pope Paul VI. showed him an extraordinary honor which otherwise belongs only to popes: Josef Beran was buried in a crypt of St. Peter's.

Because of his piety, his patriotism and his commitment to peace and justice, a beatification process for Josef Beran was opened on 2 April 1999.