Public Preaching Against the Government in 1941

The Kairos Journal reminds us of "The Lion of Münster" who took to the streets to preach sermons in protest the Third Reich's fascist government. He cried out against the government which was striving for "national efficiency," the seizure of church property and the enforcement of euthanasia. The journal reports,

"Rarely does a series of sermons so enliven a congregation as to prompt demonstrations in the streets. But this very thing happened when, in the summer of 1941, Bishop Graf von Galen of Münster preached three famous sermons against the abuses by his government. His people publicly cried out—against no less an oppressor than the Nazi regime. The bishop’s messages condemned the mounting abuses and atrocities of the Third Reich, covering issues as diverse as the illegal seizure of ecclesiastical property and the implementation of a euthanasia program to destroy the physically handicapped and the mentally ill