"A Hidden Life"
Directed by Terrence Malick, 2019
Rotten Tomatoes: https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/a_hidden_life_2019
Metascore: 79
Dear Alan ~ This seemed as though it might be of interest to you. I know Art. His wife, Colleen is a friend of mine of many years. She was youth minister at St. Francis in Raleigh back in the 1990s and we played in the Eno together. Then she made her way to DC and the Catholic Workers and she and Art married. He has spent a lot of time in jail for civil disobedience. Enjoy. All the best, josie
From: Art Laffin
Subject: Message from Art Laffin, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker--Follow Up to the Film "A Hidden Life," The Story of Martyred Franz Jagerstatter Who Refused to Fight in Hitler's Army
Subject: Message from Art Laffin, Dorothy Day Catholic Worker--Follow Up to the Film "A Hidden Life," The Story of Martyred Franz Jagerstatter Who Refused to Fight in Hitler's Army
"If the Church stays silent in the face of what is happening, what difference would it make if no church were ever opened again?" -Franz Jagerstatter
Dear Friends,
I recently viewed the outstanding film "A Hidden Life," which portrays the courageous story of the Catholic Austrian martyr Franz Jägerstätter, who refused to fight in Hitler's army. I strongly encourage all followers of Jesus to view this film and promote it in the communities you are part of as well as your parish and diocese. Below is some important follow-up info and resources for the film.
I also commend to you "The Friends of Franz And Ben," a loose-knit group, mostly Catholic, involved in disseminating the wisdom and witness of Franz Jagerstatter, as well as Ben Salmon, an American Catholic WWI conscientious objector who was imprisoned and brutally treated because of his faith and conscience beliefs. The Friends of Franz And Ben are grateful that the Catholic Church recognized the faith, courage and morality of Franz Jagerstatter by bestowing the sacred rite of Beatification on Franz in 2007. They advocate the same honor be given to Ben Salmon of Denver, Colorado.
For more info see: https://www.bensalmon.
For more info see: https://www.bensalmon.
Finally, I've included a meditation I wrote about my visit to the Dachau Concentration Camp ten years ago.
What is the Christian response to a warmaking empire and its endless wars? What is the Christian response to indiscriminate killing and state-sanctioned murder? What is the Christian response to the extrajudicial killing of Iran's top military commander which could now escalate into a full-scale regional conflict in the Middle East? And, as January 11th approaches, the 18th anniversary of the first detainees taken to Guantanamo, what is the Christian response to torture, indefinite detention and Islamophobia? The courageous witness of martyred Blessed Franz Jagerstatter is instructive for Christians today. As he writes in chains from prison, awaiting execution for refusing to fight in Hitler's army, Franz writes:
The true Christian is to be recognized more in his works than and deeds than in his speech. The surest mark of all is found in deeds showing love of neighbor. To do unto one's neighbor what one would desire for himself is more than merely not doing to others what one would not want done to himself. Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for those who persecute us. For love will conquer and will endure for all eternity. And happy are they who live and die in God's love.
Blessed Franz Jagerstatter, pray for us!
With gratitude, Art
Background
Franz Jagerstatter was a Catholic, Austrian farmer and married father of three daughters. He was beheaded on
August 9, 1943 by the Third Reich at the Berlin-Brandenberg Prison. Imprisoned in March of 1943, Jagerstatter was convicted of "undermining military morale" by "inciting the refusal to perform the required service in the German army," and condemned to death in July of 1943 by the Reich's Military Tribunal. Jagerstatter was 36 years old when he died. In October of 2007, Blessed Franz Jagerstatter was beatified by the Catholic Church.
*In the Catholic Diocese of Linz there was very strong Gestapo pressure on the clergy, with an exceptionally high number of murders and imprisonments. In the Deanery of Ostermething, to which St. Radegund belongs, 8 of 12 priests were jailed, several of them friends of Jagerstatter. Two further priests, born in St. Radegund, were also jailed.
*In 1940 the parish of St. Radegund stood united behind the parish priest, Fr. Karobath, when he was imprisoned for a "seditious" sermon.
These experiences strengthened Jagerstatter in his rejection of Nazism. Should he fight and kill so that it could conquer the whole world? In 1941 he also learned in Ybbs, of the fate of the mentally ill.
*Just as Franz has been declared "Blessed" by the church, and considered for sainthood, so, too, is his wife, Franziska, is worthy of the same honor, due to her steadfast support of Franz and her uncompromising faith in Jesus.
Jagerstatter wrote these words from prison after he was sentenced:
*In 1940 the parish of St. Radegund stood united behind the parish priest, Fr. Karobath, when he was imprisoned for a "seditious" sermon.
These experiences strengthened Jagerstatter in his rejection of Nazism. Should he fight and kill so that it could conquer the whole world? In 1941 he also learned in Ybbs, of the fate of the mentally ill.
*Just as Franz has been declared "Blessed" by the church, and considered for sainthood, so, too, is his wife, Franziska, is worthy of the same honor, due to her steadfast support of Franz and her uncompromising faith in Jesus.
Jagerstatter wrote these words from prison after he was sentenced:
“I am convinced that it is still best that I speak the truth, even if it costs me my life. For you will not find it written in any of the commandments of God or of the Church that a man is obliged under pain of sin to take an oath committing him to obey whatever might be commanded of him by his secular ruler.”
“Neither prison, nor chains, nor sentence of death, can separate me from the love of God... The power of God cannot be overcome."
“Let us love our enemies, bless those who curse us, pray for Those who persecute us. For love will conquer and will endure for all eternity. And happy are they who live and die in God's love."
Follow Up Information For "A Hidden Life"
Links to "In Solitary Witness," the First Book about Franz Jagersatter, and Catholic Resistance to Nazi Germany.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/
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Catholic resistance to Nazi Germany was a component of German resistance to Nazism and of Resistance during World War II.The role of the Church during the Nazi years was always, and remains however, a matter of much contention. Many writers, echoing Klaus Scholder, have concluded, "There was no Catholic resistance in Germany, there were only Catholics who resisted."
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An Advent Meditation from Dachau
by Art Laffin (12-2-10)
(On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Hitler became Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a school of violence for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existence over 200,000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned there and more than 43,000 died. Chiefly a political camp, it was at Dachau that the Nazis established in 1940 a dedicated Clergy Barracks. Of a total of 2,720 clergy recorded as imprisoned at Dachau, some 2,579 were Catholic and a total of 1,034 clergy were recorded overall as dying in the camp, with 132 "transferred or liquidated" during that time – although R. Schnabel's 1966 investigation found an alternative total of 2,771, with 692 noted as deceased and 336 sent out on "invalid trainloads" and therefore presumed dead).
Dachau concentration camp,
a haven of hell
imagined, created and perfected
by deranged minds and diabolical hearts.
This camp of unspeakable violence
is now a memorial site,
a reminder of how evil can possess the human heart
and how demented people can inflict the worst possible suffering on those deemed expendable.
As I walk into the past,
I see pictures of beautiful children of God--
brutalized, emaciated
tortured and killed.
I see a crematoria of extinction
a death chamber intended for unimaginable horror.
My heart aches, my spirit grieves!
I pray for all the victims whose spirits beckon us to forever resist such evil.
I pray in thanksgiving for the martyred White Rose resisters--Sophie and Hans Scholl,
for martyred conscientious objector Frans Jägerstatter,
and for all those who gave their lives
resisting the Nazi reign of terror.
Come Lord Jesus, fill all your people with your love, compassion and mercy.
Rid our hearts and our world of the fear, greed and violence that wounds and destroys.
Deepen our faith this Advent as we seek to make Your word flesh and become channels of your peace and reconciling love.
Come Lord Jesus!!!
by Art Laffin (12-2-10)
(On March 22, 1933, a few weeks after Hitler became Reich Chancellor, a concentration camp for political prisoners was set up in Dachau. This camp served as a model for all later concentration camps and as a school of violence for the SS men under whose command it stood. In the twelve years of its existence over 200,000 persons from all over Europe were imprisoned there and more than 43,000 died. Chiefly a political camp, it was at Dachau that the Nazis established in 1940 a dedicated Clergy Barracks. Of a total of 2,720 clergy recorded as imprisoned at Dachau, some 2,579 were Catholic and a total of 1,034 clergy were recorded overall as dying in the camp, with 132 "transferred or liquidated" during that time – although R. Schnabel's 1966 investigation found an alternative total of 2,771, with 692 noted as deceased and 336 sent out on "invalid trainloads" and therefore presumed dead).
Dachau concentration camp,
a haven of hell
imagined, created and perfected
by deranged minds and diabolical hearts.
This camp of unspeakable violence
is now a memorial site,
a reminder of how evil can possess the human heart
and how demented people can inflict the worst possible suffering on those deemed expendable.
As I walk into the past,
I see pictures of beautiful children of God--
brutalized, emaciated
tortured and killed.
I see a crematoria of extinction
a death chamber intended for unimaginable horror.
My heart aches, my spirit grieves!
I pray for all the victims whose spirits beckon us to forever resist such evil.
I pray in thanksgiving for the martyred White Rose resisters--Sophie and Hans Scholl,
for martyred conscientious objector Frans Jägerstatter,
and for all those who gave their lives
resisting the Nazi reign of terror.
Come Lord Jesus, fill all your people with your love, compassion and mercy.
Rid our hearts and our world of the fear, greed and violence that wounds and destroys.
Deepen our faith this Advent as we seek to make Your word flesh and become channels of your peace and reconciling love.
Come Lord Jesus!!!
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