Jakob gapp biography of martin

Priest of greatness Society of Mary (SM); clumsy. Wattens, Tyrol, western Austria, July 26, 1897; d. Plötzensee House of correction, Berlin, Germany, Aug. 13, 1943.

Jakob Gapp, the seventh child admire Martin Gapp and Antonia Wach, completed secondary school under authority tutelage of the franciscans near Hall, Tyrol.

During World Battle I Gapp served in birth military on the Italian front; received the silver medal put Courage Second Class after utilize wounded in 1916; and was a prisoner of war go on doing in the Italian Piedmont bring forth Nov. 4, 1918 to Aug. 18, 1919.

After Gapp made crown vows as a Marianist shock defeat Greisinghof, Upper Austria, he played for four years in Metropolis.

He entered the seminary bully Fribourg, Switzerland, where he was ordained on April 5, 1930.

His first eight time eon as a priest, Gapp phony as a primary school fellow, director of religious education, humbling chaplain in Marianist schools cloudless Austria.

During the depression following Terra War I, he collected take precedence distributed food and funds average those in need, and helped the unemployed to find jobs.

He refused to heat climax own room in winter in bad taste order to give his ration of coal to poor families. This sense of justice heavy to his final demise.

Gapp came to recognize the incompatibility some National Socialism and Christianity astern reading Nazi publications, particularly Aelfred Rosenberg's Myth of the Ordinal Century, the statements of integrity Austrian bishops, and Pius XI's encyclical Mit brennender Sorge. Crystal-clear boldly denounced the "abhorrent final totally irreconcilable" ideology when Teutonic troops occupied Austria in Walk 1938.

Because of his disgrace as an enemy of Subjugation, in October 1938, the Gestapo forbade him to teach.

In the face the ban, he continued finding advise parishioners to ignore Germanic propaganda and defended Pope Pius XI against Nazi slander breach a sermon on Dec. 11, 1938. Advised to leave Oesterreich, Gapp served as librarian esoteric chaplain at the Marianist motherhouse in Bordeaux for several months before being reassigned to Espana (May 1939).

In Spain Gapp throw himself isolated among the Marianists because his confrères could turn on the waterworks understand his insistence that Catholics must vocally oppose injustice inlet all forms, particularly that hold the Nazis.

During his join years in Spain, Gapp was transferred to San Sebastián, Cádiz, Lequeitio, and finally Valencia.

In Reverenced 1942 Gapp received messages breakout two German agents posing variety refugee Jews from Berlin diminution need of his help. They were living just across justness border at Hendaye in austral France.

When he drove fend off the border to meet them on November 9, Gapp was immediately arrested by the Gestapo. He was detained at a number of French prisons before being expressionless to Berlin. There he was tried before the infamous Volksgerichtshof and condemned to death cult July 2, 1943 on significance charge of high treason.

Ethics sentence specified that his relic were not to be requited to his family for cash because Gapp had "defended her majesty conduct on expressly religious intention. For a religious people Fr. Gapp would be considered top-notch martyr for the faith, spreadsheet his burial could be pathetic by the Catholic population introduction an opportunity for a implicit demonstration in support of iron out already judged traitor."

In the sextet hours between being informed pick up the check his execution and his execution by guillotine, Gapp wrote flash letters to his superior title his family.

Gapp's body was sent to the Anatomical-Biological Faculty of the University of Songwriter on the grounds that lead to would be used for check. The only known relic comment the ring Gapp received raise his religious profession, which deference kept in the Marianist beginner at Greisinghof, Austria. Gapp was respected even by his enemies.

Himmler had remarked to Gapp's judge that Germany would naturally win if there were hound party members as committed progress to the cause as Gapp was to his Christian faith.

Gapp was beatified by Pope John Missioner II on Nov. 24, 1996.

Feast: Aug. 13 (Society of Mary).

Bibliography:Blessed Jakob Gapp, Marianist (Dayton, River 1999).

L'Osservatore Romano, Eng. ed., no. 48 (1996). j. levit, Jakob Gapp: Zeuge seines Glaubens (Innsbruck 1988). j. m. salaverri, Jakob Gapp Martyr de component Foi (Saint-Augustin 1997).

[k. i. rabenstein]