BRAVE WARRIOR- ANOTHER MARTYR

BL. RICHARD HENKES was beatified on September 5 by Pope Francis. The new blessed was born in 1900 in the German village of Ruppach/ Westerwald. He joined the Pallottines in Vallendar to become a priest. In 1918 he was called up for military service and finished his A levels in 1919. Afterwards he joined the Pallottines in Limburg. He had his first consecration in 1921, was ordained priest in 1925 and became a teacher in Schönstatt in 1926, a duty which was interrupted by a severe pulmonary TB. In 1931 he was transferred to teach in Katscher/ Upper Silesia and afterwards to Frankenstein/ Silesia.

After the Nazis seizure of power, the religious dispute with National Socialism became his second big vocation. Bravely, Bl. Henkes represented the values of Christianity at school, in numerous religious exercises for the youths and in his preaching, too. It was as early as 1937 when he was denounced because of one of his homilies. He had to stand trial at a special court in Breslau (the home of St. Teresa Benedicta of the Cross who also died in a concentration camp) because of a supposed vilification of the “Führer”, but there was no verdict then.

His superiors took the endangered confrere from teaching in 1938 and Bl. Henkes went on working as a youth chaplain, a master for religious exercises, particularly in Branitz, and as a famous preacher in all of Upper Silesia. His last engagement was the one as a priest’s representative in the town of Strandorf (1941 to 1943). Due to these activities and his open language, he became more and more the focus of attention of the Nazi authorities. He was interrogated and threatened by the Gestapo again and again.

Bl. Henkes was arrested by the Gestapo in Ratibor/ Upper Silesia  (East Germany on the Polish/Czech borders) on May 8th, 1943 due to a sermon he had given in Branitz. He was then deported to the concentration camp of Dachau in Bavaria. There, he had to do compulsory labor like all prisoners. He remained strong in faith, shared his food with many others and encouraged his fellow prisoners. It was there  he met the later archbishop of Prague, Cardinal Josef Beran. Though it wasn’t easy for him, he continued his studies of the Czech language, which he had  started in Strandorf, as he intended to stay in the east after the war.

From 1944 he worked as a canteen operator and secret preacher on block 17, where there were many Czech people.  He himself lived on the priest’s block, #26. In the late months of 1944, a second typhus epidemic spread in the concentration camp. Though knowing that this could have fatal consequences for him, Bl. Henkes volunteered to care for the typhus patients on block 17, being locked up with them. After 8 weeks he became infected himself and within five days died on February 22nd, 1945.

The Pallottines ( The Society of the Catholic Apostolate, better known as the Pallottines, are a Society of Apostolic Life within the Roman Catholic Church, founded in 1835 by the Roman priest Saint Vincent Pallotti. Pallottines are part of the Union of Catholic Apostolate and are present in 45 countries on six continents)  consider his sacrifice as the one of a brave warrior and as a testimony for the Christian faith as well as a martyr of Christian charity. The Pallottines and the Czech bishops trust that Bl. Richard Henkes and the Czech archbishop Josef Beran will function as connecting links of reconciliation between Czech, German and Polish people. Bl. Henkes most important places of activity now belong to Poland and the Czech Republic.