Father Werenfried van Straaten, man with an extraordinary mission

"One venture led to the next. I lived only in the present, from day to day. I never had a long-range plan. Each time one project was achieved, God gave me a new one; what I had to do was always clear. I am no theorist;: I am a doer. I trust in divine Providence, in the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, and I try to do what God expects of me."

- Father Werenfried van Straaten

Father Werenfried van Straaten, founder of the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need, with headquarters in Königstein, near Frankfurt,
died on January 31,2003 at the age of 90.

A man who worked tirelessly to support the persecuted and menaced Church worldwide, Father Werenfried was known for his bold initiatives as well as compelling sermons and fund-raising skills as he undertook many an extraordinary mission.

What began as an initiative in 1947 to help starving German refugees from the East, grew into the largest Church aid organization of the post-war period that now raises some $70 million annually, distributed to more than 7,000 church projects in over 130 countries.

Under Father Werenfried's direction, the growing organization turned to providing support for Christians and Churches under Soviet domination. Father Werenfried traveled to raise awareness, provide material help and procure religious literature for what he referred to as the "Church of Silence" - Catholic communities suffering or banned under the Communist regimes of Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union.

His endeavors, as noted in The New York Times , at times involved "venturing, sometimes clandestinely, into the Soviet sphere to meet with Church leaders and judge the situation on the ground."

A newsletter titled the Mirror, begun in 1953 and now circulated in seven languages, documented instances of persecution of Churches and the faithful. As noted in the magazine Inside the Vatican, "In it, for half a century, Father Werenfried wrote his famous letters, challenging, inspiring, moving and uncompromising. Often he confronted the Church and moral issues which many others no longer dared address."

"The organization," as noted in The New York Times obituary, "gained papal recognition once it turned to providing support for Christians and Churches under Soviet domination." During the Second Vatican Council Father Werenfried met 60 Eastern European bishops, pledging his support for their hard-pressed faithful.

In 1960 ACN extended its aid beyond Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union, and initiated projects in Latin America, Africa and Asia.

Born in the Netherlands in 1917, Philipp van Straaten studied philosophy and classical studies at Utrecht University, where he was heavily involved in Christian political movements. Rejecting politics for the monastic life, he entered the Norbertine Order in 1934, taking the name Werenfried (Warrior for Peace). He was ordained a priest in 1940.

As a young Norbertine monk in Tongerlo, Belgium, he edited the abbey newsletter, Tower, in which at Christmas 1947 he wrote an article titled "Peace on Earth? No Room at the Inn," appealing for help for the 14 million Germans expelled from the Eastern territories, 6 million of whom were Catholics. As noted in the magazine Inside the Vatican, "His courageous and solitary call for love and forgiveness among his countrymen for their former enemies received an overwhelming response ... Knowing the people were more likely to have sides of cured bacon than money, ... he urged them to contribute as much of it as they could to help the starving refugees; the quantity he collected soon earned him the nickname by which he would be known to his dying day: 'the Bacon Priest.' "

Among his early projects was a program undertaken in Königstein, providing transport for the 3,000 "rucksack priests" - Catholic priests from among the displaced refugee population who ministered as best they could to their scattered flocks, resettled in mainly Protestant areas of Germany. By 1950 he was financing the first "chapel trucks" - converted buses used as mobile churches.

According to the London-based newspaper The Independent (Digital) , the campaign "marked the beginning of the organization Iron Curtain Church Relief which would, in 1969, become Aid to the Church in Need (after Pope Paul VI had bowed to pressure from [Yugoslavia's President Josip Broz] Tito to have it change its name)." Father Werenfried titled his 1965 history of the organization "They Call Me the Bacon Priest."

As noted in The Independent, Father Werenfried "was a strong supporter of those who refused to compromise with the Communist authorities, such as Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty in Hungary and Cardinal Josyf Slipyj in Ukraine, both of whom suffered imprisonment, and later an unhappy exile where they felt boxed in by the dictates of the Vatican." Father Werenfried's "combative anti-Communism," as referred to in The New York Times notice, "at times left him at odds with official Vatican policy, and led liberal Church elements in England to stop donations, dismissing him as the 'last general of the Cold War.' "

The Independent refers to Father Werenfried first meeting with Cardinal Slipyj in Rome in 1963 after the latter was "expelled from the Soviet Union on Nikita Khrushchev's order."

In 1991, as noted by the London Times Online, ACN "financed the return of the exiled archbishop of Lviv and his retinue to Ukraine. Van Straaten flew with the cardinal [Lubachivsky] from Rome the day after Cardinal Lubachivsky took possession of his cathedral, only just returned to the Church by the authorities. Van Straaten himself was hailed as a hero by more than 100,000 people in the City Square before the Opera House."

Moreover, as noted by Felix Corley of The Independent, "In a far-sighted policy, ACN gave vital financial support to émigré Church institutions, such as the Ukrainian Catholic University in Rome, believing that, when communism eventually gave way to a more open system, the continued existence of Catholic intellectual life in those cultures would speed the recovery of the Church in their respective homelands."

With the collapse of communism and particularly the ascension of the Polish-born Pope John Paul II, ACN continued its drive to aid those in need. Referring to the close relationship between Father Werenfried and Pope John Paul, the London Times wrote - "Both interpreted world events in a spiritual light and believed that the secularized West needed re-evangelisation as much as the former Communist countries or those in the Third World."

ACN was active in supporting Arab refugees in the Middle East, as well as refugees from China, North Korea and North Vietnam. In 1962, at the encouragement of Pope John XXIII, Father Werenfried extended ACN's work to Latin America, making his first visit to the continent. He was visibly shocked by the poverty in the favelas (shanty towns) of Rio de Janeiro.

Referring to Father Werenfried as a "servant of God who was unafraid to wrestle with his Master," Inside the Vatican singled out his trip to Brazil, citing the incident during which he prayed before the huge statue of Christ in Rio de Janeiro: "Lord Jesus Christ, I have come from afar in order to speak to You on behalf of the poor. On the way I have seen with horror and taken into my heart the needs of the millions. Permit me to say to You that what I have seen on this continent is a scandal."

In 1965 he began work in Africa. As noted in The Independent, "during the genocide in Burundi in 1972 he was arrested, but managed to escape and gain sanctuary in the Vatican nunciature before being expelled." After his 1965 visit to Congo, he founded the Daughters of the Resurrection: a unique religious congregation, open to young African women with no formal education.

Among Father Werenfried's latest initiatives, as reported in both Inside the Vatican and The Independent, was the effort to overcome the mutual distrust between Catholics and the Russian Orthodox (in schism since 1054) as well as to end the schism in the Catholic Church in China - initiatives that proved to be controversial for some Catholics as well as Orthodox, and difficult for some underground bishops and priests to accept.

As noted in The Independent's obituary, "even in his 80s when he [Father Werenfried] had already given up day-to-day involvement in ACN's management, he continued to tour the world, visiting projects and drumming up support for the charity's work."

"His tricks of the trade seldom varied. His self-deprecatory humor and his carefully cultivated image of a simple man masked a peasant cunning. He never went anywhere without his famous begging hat, originally made by Dunn & Co. of London and long worn out." Often to be found at the back of the church or hall, after his countless sermons and appeals (up to 90 a month), Father Werenfried used the hat to collect millions of dollars in donations for the charity.

Read more about Fr. Werenfried van Straaten
and about Aid Tp The Church In Need
www.kirche-in-not.org/