SAINT FEAST DAY 12 AUGUST: BL. KARL LEISNER

BLESSED KARL LEISNER, PRIEST AND MARTYR

Blessed Karl Leisner was born on February 28, 1915 and in 1934 he entered the seminary [...] He spent six months in compulsory agricultural work during which, despite Nazi opposition, he organised Sunday Mass for his fellow workers. His home was raided by the Gestapo, who seized his diaries and papers. These meticulously preserved documents tell how the spiritual young man became a religious leader. On March 25, 1939, Leisner was ordained deacon.

HE WAS ARRESTED

Then, during a medical examination, the doctor told him that he had contracted tuberculosis. He was sent to a sanatorium in the Black Forest, where he began to recover but it was during his recovery that a fellow patient heard him criticise Hitler. The Gestapo arrested him on November 9, 1939. He was initially imprisoned in the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, but was moved to Dachau on December 14, 1941. Prisoners often had to work outside in snow or rain and sleep in their wet clothes. He was beaten unconscious by two guards. By March 1942, he was spitting blood and was put in a room that was crowded with over 100 TB patients.

HE WAS ORDAINED A PRIEST IN SECRET

On December 17, 1944, a fellow prisoner, Bishop Gabriel Piguet, secretly ordained him a priest. He only celebrated one Mass. When Dachau was liberated in 1945, Leisner was taken to a sanatorium near Munich. He died there a few months later, on August 12, 1945.

On a visit to Berlin in 1996, Pope John Paul II recognised Leisner as a martyr for the Catholic faith and beatified him. His feast day is August 12.

(This article was published in “The Catholic Universe”, paper edition, on 31 March 2013)

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