Pope Praises Nun, Priests for Opposing Hitler

Pope John Paul II on Saturday praised four Germans who had opposed Adolf Hitler, including a Jewish convert who died at Auschwitz, during an outdoor Mass that set the stage for beatification ceremonies.

The three priests and one nun were a “sign of the resistance to the demoniacal forces in a world remote from God,” he told about 70,000 people gathered under colorful umbrellas at an airstrip on the damp summer morning.

The pope will beatify two of the priests in a ceremony today in Berlin that marks a step toward sainthood. The other priest and the nun have already been beatified.

John Paul, who has won praise from Jews for speaking out against anti-Semitism, spoke about the two men he will beatify. The Rev. Bernhard Lichtenberg died in jail for his sermons against persecuting Jews; the Rev. Karl Leisner was sent to a concentration camp for expressing regret that an assassination attempt on Hitler had failed.

The pope also cited two Germans who were beatified in 1987--Edith Stein, who converted from Judaism to become a nun and died in the Auschwitz gas chamber, and the Rev. Rupert Mayer, a Jesuit priest who survived Nazi persecution.

John Paul refrained from expanding his praise, however, to the Roman Catholic Church as a whole during the Nazi era, as his written comments indicated he had planned.

Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said the full written text is an official papal pronouncement. He said he had no idea why the pope skipped the passage at Mass.