Quote of the Day – 22 March – Friday of the Second week of Lent, Year C
and the Memorial of Blessed Clemens August Count von Galen (1878-1946)
“The Lion of Munster”
Hitler’s order for the “Aktion T4” Euthanasia Programme was dated 1 September 1939, the day Germany invaded Poland. As word of the programme spread, protest grew, until finally, Bishop Galen delivered his famous August 1941 sermons denouncing the programme as “murder”. On 3 August 1941, in one of his series of denunciations, Blessed Galen declared:
“‘Thou shalt not kill.'” God engraved this commandment on the souls of men, long before any penal code… God has engraved these commandments in our hearts… They are the unchangeable and fundamental truths of our social life… Where in Germany and where, here, is obedience to the precepts of God? … As for the first commandment, ‘Thou shalt not have strange gods before me,’ instead of the One, True, Eternal God, men have created at the dictates of their whim, their own gods to adore – Nature, the State, the Nation, or the Race.”
Blessed Clemens August Count von Galen (1878-1946) “The Lion of Munster”
(via Quote of the Day - 22 March - 'Thou shalt not kill.')