Within the detention camp of Dachau near Munich in Bavaria, Germany, Blessed Titus Brandsma, priest of the Order of Carmelites and martyr, who, Dutch by birth, endured every kind of hardship and harassment with equanimity for the defense of the Church and of human dignity, giving an example of outstanding charity both toward his fellow prisoners and even toward his executioners.
Lifespan: 1881–1942
Beatified: 3 November 1985 by Pope Giovanni Paolo
Canonized: 15 May 2022 by Pope Francis
Memoria liturgica: 26 July
A Man of Peace in Europe at War
Life and Works
Titus Brandsma was born at the farm of Oegeklooster, near Bolsward, in the Netherlands, on 23 February 1881. His baptismal name was Anno Sjoerd. His father, Titus, was a prosperous farmer, married to Tjitsje Postma; they had six children, four girls and two boys, of whom one married while the others all entered religious life.
Between 1892 and 1898, Anno Sjoerd attended the Franciscan gymnasium at Megen, in North Brabant. He felt a growing sense of vocation and wished to enter the Franciscans, but was not accepted on account of his frail health, which was judged insufficient to sustain the rigours of Franciscan life.
He turned instead to the Carmelites, who accepted him: on 22 September 1898 he entered the novitiate at Boxmeer. In honour of his father, he took the religious name Titus. At the conclusion of his novitiate year, he professed his religious vows on 3 October 1899.
Between 1900 and 1905 he followed courses in philosophy and theology at the communities of Boxmeer, Zenderen, and Oss. In 1901 he published his first book: an anthology of writings by Saint Teresa of Jesus, which he himself had translated from French, entitled Bloemlezing uit de werken der H. Teresia (Florilegium of the Works of St. Teresa).
On 17 June 1905, at the age of twenty-four, he was ordained a priest in the cathedral of Den Bosch, in Brabant. He was then sent to Rome, to the International College of Saint Albert, where he remained for three years, from 1906 to 1909. He attended the Faculty of Philosophy at the Pontifical Gregorian University and also took courses in sociology at the Leonine Institute. In the meantime he continued to contribute to several Dutch newspapers and periodicals. During the summer holidays he stayed at Mainburg, in Bavaria. In that period he suffered a relapse of a stomach ailment and, in order to recover, was sent for a time to the friary at Albano Laziale. On 25 October 1909 he successfully completed his doctoral examination.
On his return to the Netherlands, he began teaching philosophy and mathematics at the Carmelite studentate in Oss, where he remained from 1909 to 1923. In 1912 he founded the periodical Karmelrozen (Roses of Carmel, later renamed Speling), and in 1918 he began publishing a multi-volume edition of the works of Saint Teresa in Dutch. From 1919 to 1923 he served as editor-in-chief of the newspaper De Stad Oss (The City of Oss).
In 1923 he became professor of philosophy and the history of mysticism at the newly founded Catholic University of Nijmegen, where he remained until 1942.
In the academic year 1932–1933, he was elected Rector Magnificus of the same university, and on the occasion of the opening of the academic year he delivered a celebrated address on the concept of God. During that year he made an official journey to Milan and Rome.
In 1935, the Archbishop of Utrecht, His Excellency Archbishop Johannes De Jong, appointed Father Titus ecclesiastical assistant to the Association of Catholic Journalists, with responsibility for overseeing some thirty periodicals. It was on that occasion that the Blessed obtained his international press card. He also travelled to Ireland and the United States, where he delivered lectures on Carmelite spirituality and tradition, subsequently gathered in the volume The Beauty of Carmel.
Father Titus was a gentle man, attentive to those he spoke with, and a patient listener. He showed particular availability towards his students and was always ready to help anyone in need.
Between 1938 and 1939 he taught courses at the university, criticising the pagan and anti-human character of National Socialist ideology, whose danger he had clearly understood.
Meanwhile, the war that had begun in September 1939 with the invasion of Poland turned westward as well: on 10 May 1940, Hitler’s forces invaded the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, and France.
On 26 January 1941 the Dutch Church, through its bishops, responded firmly against the Nazi measures. Father Titus, who had also been entrusted with the presidency of the Association of Catholic Schools, collaborated actively with the episcopate. Archbishop Johannes De Jong, in a conversation with the Blessed, expressed his concern over the situation of the Catholic press, which was being compelled to publish proclamations issued by the occupying government in open contradiction with Christian morality. To this end, during the first ten days of January 1942, Father Titus travelled by train across the Netherlands, visiting the editorial offices of Catholic newspapers in order to convey the directives of the episcopate and to encourage their editors to resist the Nazi pressure. His Excellency Archbishop De Jong subsequently declared that the friar was well aware of the danger to which he was exposing himself.
Hardly had he returned to Nijmegen when he gave his last lecture at the University. While making his way back to the friary, he was arrested. On 20 January 1942 he was taken to Scheveningen prison, where he remained until 12 March. When questioned about his activities and the reasons for his opposition to National Socialism, Father Titus stated his positions with frankness, setting them down in a nine-page memorandum. The transcripts of that interrogation, preserved by the officer in charge — a laicised priest — proved invaluable material in the Cause of Blessed Brandsma. In prison he was permitted to keep two books: the life of Saint Teresa of Jesus written by Kwalkman (Het leven van heiligen Theresia, 1908) and Jezus by Cyriel Verschaeve (1939). Father Titus resolved to occupy the time of his imprisonment by writing the life of Saint Teresa, something he had wished to do since his days at Oss but had never managed for the press of other obligations. For want of paper, he used the book on the life of Jesus, writing the life of the Saint of Ávila between its lines. From his days at Scheveningen there also survives a diary entitled My Cell. He likewise composed the prayer Before the Image of Jesus.
On 12 March he was taken to the penal camp at Amersfoort, where he remained until 28 April, compelled to work and to live under extremely harsh conditions. On 16 May he was brought back to Scheveningen for further interrogation, which continued until 13 June. From Scheveningen he was transferred to the transit camp at Kleve, in Germany, where he found some relief from the sufferings endured at Amersfoort. At Kleve he was able to attend Mass and to hold spiritual conversations with the camp chaplain. All efforts by his superiors to have Father Brandsma’s sentence commuted to house arrest, to be served in a German convent, proved unavailing.
On 13 June began the long train journey, in a cattle wagon together with many other prisoners, that carried the Blessed through Cologne, Frankfurt, and Nuremberg to the camp at Dachau. Built in the early 1930s, this concentration camp held at least 110,000 persons before the war’s end, of whom only 30,000 left alive. The majority of inmates fell ill on account of the wretched sanitary conditions and the inhuman severity of the life and work regime. The camp infirmary was in practice nothing more than an antechamber to the crematorium. Medical experiments were also conducted there, with the prisoners — especially the disabled and the most enfeebled — serving as subjects.
From 19 June to 18 July 1942, Father Titus was held in Block 28, where a considerable number of religious and priests had been gathered. On 18 July he was admitted to the camp infirmary, known as the Revier, where he remained until Sunday, 26 July. That day, at two o’clock in the afternoon, he was killed by an injection of carbolic acid. Shortly before his death, the Blessed had given the nurse who was administering the fatal injection his Rosary, which a fellow internee had fashioned for him. The woman, a young Dutch woman captivated by Nazi ideology, told him she did not know how to pray, and Father Titus replied that all she would need to say was:
Pray for us sinners.
She later converted and, during the Process for Beatification and Canonization, gave her precious testimony concerning the last hours of the Carmelite’s life.
The body of Titus Brandsma, like those of thousands of other prisoners who had died, was in all probability cremated in the incinerators of the Dachau camp.
Course of the Cause
a) Towards Beatification
The Cause of Beatification and Canonization of Father Titus Brandsma, O.Carm., was formally opened on 14 February 1952, when the Sacred Congregation of Rites granted the Bishop of ‘s-Hertogenbosch the faculty to conduct the Ordinary Process in his Diocese.
The Ordinary Process was held from 13 January 1955 to 8 December 1957, with a Rogatory Process in Rome from 25 May to 28 June 1957.
On 16 December 1957, the Acts of the Ordinary Process were opened, as well as those of the Processes super scriptis
and super non cultu. The decree on the writings was subsequently dated 2 April 1964, and that on the absence of cult 21 March 1975.
The Introduction of the Cause was examined at length, also in consequence of the substantial change in the legislation on Causes of Saints in 1969. What was at stake was the evaluation, for the first time, of a Cause of presumed martyrdom in which the candidate had died ex aerumnis carceris — that is, as a result of the ill-treatment suffered during deportation, inflicted upon him by the German National Socialist system. The Supreme Pontiff Paul VI determined that an Apostolic Process of a “reduced” form should be conducted for this purpose; it was held in ‘s-Hertogenbosch from 20 June to 23 October 1975.
The Cause was examined by the Special Congress of Theological Consultors on 22 May 1984, which recognised the death of Titus Brandsma as true martyrdom.
On 2 October 1984 the Ordinary Session of Cardinals and Bishops was held, which confirmed the conclusions of the Theological Consultors. On 9 November following, the Holy Father John Paul II authorised the promulgation of the decree on martyrdom.
Titus Brandsma was beatified in the Vatican Basilica on 3 November 1985.
b) In View of Canonisation
From 11 July 2016 to 12 December 2017, the diocesan inquiry into an alleged miracle obtained through the intercession of the Blessed was conducted in the Diocese of Palm Beach, Florida. It concerned the healing of a professed priest of the Carmelite Order from the recurrence of a “metastatic melanoma of the lymph nodes.” No trace of the disease — particularly malignant and invasive — remained, even more than fifteen years later. The juridical validity of the diocesan inquiry was recognized by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints by decree of 13 April 2018.
The Medical Consilium, at its meeting of 26 November 2020, recognized that the healing was rapid, complete, and lasting, and finds no explanation within current medical knowledge.
On 25 May 2021, the Theological Consultors answered affirmatively the dubium as to whether this had been a miracle wrought by God through the intercession of Blessed Titus Brandsma. The same judgment was expressed by the Cardinal Fathers and Bishop Members at the Ordinary Session of 9 November 2021.
His Holiness Francis authorized the Congregation for the Causes of Saints to promulgate the decree super miraculo on 25 November 2021.