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In August 1908, a white mob attacked Springfield, Illinois’s Black community, destroying homes and businesses and lynching two Black men. National outrage over the violence helped spur the movement that created the NAACP the following year.
MORE →Reflects the personal views, recollections, and perspective of the author, Mike Davis.
This is a personal recollection on the Move fire on May 13, 1985
Blessed Rupert Mayer SJ | |
|---|---|
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| Martyr | |
| Born | 23 January 1876 Stuttgart, Germany |
| Died | 1 November 1945 (aged 69) Munich, Germany |
| Venerated in | Roman Catholic Church |
| Beatified | 3 May 1987, Munich by Pope John Paul II |
| Feast | 3 November (several German dioceses, Jesuit order), 5 November (Diocese of Eichstätt) |
Rupert Mayer (23 January 1876 – 1 November 1945) was a German Jesuit priest and a leading figure of the Catholic resistance to Nazism in Munich.[1] In 1987, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.[2][3]
Mayer was born and grew up in Stuttgart, one of five siblings.[4] He finished his secondary education in 1894 and studied philosophy and theology in Freiburg, Switzerland; Munich and Tübingen.[5] He was, among other things, a member of A.V. Guestfalia Tübingen and K.D.St.V. Aenania München, two Studentenverbindungen that belong to the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. In 1899, he was ordained a priest and served for a year as an assistant pastor in Spaichingen before joining the Society of Jesus in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria (then Austria-Hungary) in 1900.[6] After his novitiate, he went to the Netherlands for further studies between 1906 and 1911, and then moved about Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands preaching missions in many parishes.[7] In 1912, he was transferred to Munich, where his ministry was largely to migrants who had come to the city seeking employment.
From 1914, Mayer volunteered as a chaplain in the First World War. He was initially assigned to a camp hospital; but was later made a Field Captain and sent to the fronts in France, Poland and Romania as chaplain to a division of soldiers. His bravery was legendary and he was held in great esteem by the soldiers.[7] When there was fighting at the front, Mayer would be found himself crawling along the ground from one soldier to the next talking to them, and administering the sacraments to them. In December 1915, Mayer was the first chaplain to win the Iron Cross for bravery in recognition of his work with the soldiers at the front. In December 1916, he lost his left leg after it was injured in a grenade attack.[7] He returned to Munich to convalesce and was referred to as the Limping Priest.
Mayer worked managing a clerical retreat, as a preacher, and as of 1921 as a leader of the men's sodality in Munich. Mayer introduced Sunday Masses at the main railway terminal for the convenience of travellers.[8]
In January 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, he began to close church-affiliated schools and started a campaign to discredit the religious orders in Germany. Mayer spoke out against this persecution from the pulpit of St. Michael's in downtown Munich and because he was a powerful influence in the city, the Nazis could not tolerate such a force to oppose them. On 16 May 1937, the Gestapo ordered Mayer to stop speaking in public which he obeyed, but he continued to preach in church.[9]
Mayer spoke out against anti-Catholic baiting campaigns and fought against Nazi church policy. Since he believed that a Catholic could not be a National Socialist, conflict inevitably arose between him and the Nazis.[8] He preached that Man must obey God more than men. His protests against the Nazis landed him several times in Landsberg prison. Mayer resolutely spoke out against the Nazi régime's evil in his lectures and sermons. On 5 June 1937, he was arrested and found himself in "protective custody" in Stadelheim Prison for six weeks. When he became the target of defamatory attacks on the part of the Nazis, his Jesuit superiors allowed him to return to the pulpit to defend himself against slanders that the Nazis had made during his silence. He was re-arrested and served a sentence of five months.[9]
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Mayer was arrested again on 3 November 1939 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp under the Kanzelparagraphen, a series of 19th-century laws that forbade the clergy to make political statements. He was released from there on the condition of a broad ban on preaching. The sixty-three-year-old priest developed heart problems. From late 1944, he was interned in Ettal Abbey,[6] mainly because the Nazis were afraid that he would die in the concentration camp, and thus become a martyr. He remained there until liberated by the US forces in May 1945.[8]
A United States officer returned him to Munich, where he resumed his duties at St. Michael's Church.[8] Mayer died on his feet on 1 November 1945 of a stroke, while he was celebrating 8:00 AM Mass, on the feast of All Saints' Day in St. Michael's in Munich. Accompanied by thousands of mourners, Mayer was first buried at the Jesuit cemetery in Pullach. Due to the steady stream of pilgrims, his remains were moved to Munich in 1948 and were reburied in the "Lower Church" of the Bürgersaalkirche.[10]
Since his death in 1945, Mayer's followers called for his beatification. On 26 September 1951,[11] Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber opened the information process in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising regarding the call to sanctity and virtues. In 1951, Jesuit provincial Otto Faller completed and formally forwarded the beatification information to Rome.
In 1956, Pope Pius XII, who had personally known Rupert Mayer during his time as nuncio in Munich, awarded him the title Servant of God.[9] Under Pope John XXIII, the beatification process was initiated, the results of which were formally accepted by Pope Paul VI in 1971. Under Pope John Paul II, the decree of 'heroic virtue' was issued in 1983.[10] Mayer was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 May 1987 in Munich.[10] His feast day is 3 November.
In Bavaria, numerous streets are named after Father Mayer. In 1954, the Cartell Rupert Mayer (CRM) was founded. It was a further development of the first Christliche Loge (CL) founded in Munich in 1946. The mediaeval Dombauhütten Logen may be considered its forerunner. In Pullach, Bavaria, a public school, a Realschule [12] and a Gymnasium [13] bear his name.
In Cebu City, Philippines, Sacred Heart School - Ateneo de Cebu, has a section named after him. Another Jesuit school in the Philippines, Xavier University - Ateneo de Cagayan, has a high school section that bears his name. Regis Jesuit High School in Aurora, Colorado dedicated the chapel to him.[14] The parish church of Oberbozen (Soprabolzano) on South Tyrol's Ritten, inaugurated in 1991, has been dedicated to P. Rupert Mayer. In 2006 Fordham University dedicated a chapel in his name at their Lincoln Center campus in Manhattan, New York.[15][16] A missionary school is named after him in Zimbabwe.[17] Ateneo de Davao University's Senior High School in the Philippines has a senior high school section named after him.
In 1988 he was pictured on a German postage stamp with Edith Stein in honour of their beatifications.[18]
In 2014 a movie was made of his life, called Father Rupert Mayer and starring Oliver Gruber. The movie can be seen on YouTube.
The following text come from the song produced by Bukas Palad Music Ministry:
Lord, what You will let it be so
Where You will there we will go
What is Your will help us to know
Lord, when You will the time is right
In You there's joy in strife
For Your will I'll give my life
To ease Your burden brings no pain
To forego all for You is gain
As long as I in You remain
REFRAIN:
Because You will it, it is best
Because You will it, we are blest
Till in Your hands our hearts find rest
Till in Your hands our hearts find rest
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Source: Wikipedia. Article content is retrieved live through the MediaWiki API.
Rupert Mayer (23 January 1876 – 1 November 1945) was a German Jesuit priest and a leading figure of the Catholic resistance to Nazism in Munich. In 1987, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II.
At the outbreak of World War II, the Society of Jesus (Jesuits) had 1700 members in Nazi Germany, divided into three provinces: Eastern, Lower and Upper Germany. Nazi leaders had some admiration for the discipline of the Jesuit order, but opposed its principles. Of the 152 Jesuits murdered by the Nazis across Europe, 27 died in captivity or its results, and 43 in the concentration camps. Hitler was anticlerical and had particular disdain for the Jesuits. The Jesuit Provincial, Augustin Rosch, ended the war on death row for his role in the July Plot to overthrow Hitler. The Catholic Church faced persecution in Nazi Germany and persecution was particularly severe in Poland. The Superior General of the Jesuits at the outbreak of War was Wlodzimierz Ledochowski, a Pole. Vatican Radio, which spoke out against Axis atrocities, was run by the Jesuit Filippo Soccorsi. Jesuits made up the largest contingent of clergy imprisoned in the Priest Barracks of Dachau Concentration Camp, where some 30 Jesuits died. Several Jesuits were prominent in the small German Resistance, including the influential martyr Alfred Delp of the Kreisau Circle. The German Jesuit Robert Leiber acted as intermediary between Pius XII and the German Resistance. Among the Jesuit victims of the Nazis, Germany's Rupert Mayer has been beatified. Among twelve Jesuit "Righteous Gentiles" recognised by Yad Vashem is Belgium's Jean-Baptiste Janssens, who was appointed Superior General of the Jesuits after the War.
Rupert Alexander Lloyd Grint ( ; born 24 August 1988) is an English actor. He rose to fame for his role as Ron Weasley in the Harry Potter film series, for which he was cast at age eleven, having previously acted only in school plays and his local theatre group. Grint portrayed Weasley in all eight films in the series, beginning with Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone (2001) and concluding with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows – Part 2 (2011). Since then, he has continued to work in film, television, and theatre. Beginning in 2002, Grint began to work outside of the Harry Potter franchise, with a co-leading role in Thunderpants. He starred in the dramedy Driving Lessons (2006) and the drama Cherrybomb (2009) and co-starred in the comedy Wild Target (2010). After the Harry Potter series concluded, he appeared in the films Into the White (2012), Charlie Countryman (2013), CBGB (2013), Moonwalkers (2015), and Knock at the Cabin (2023). Grint made his stage debut in 2013 in Mojo at the Harold Pinter Theatre. He executive-produced and starred in the television series Snatch, based on the film of the same name. He has also starred in the black comedy series Sick Note, the mystery thriller miniseries The ABC Murders, and the psychological horror series Servant.
Keith Rupert Murdoch ( MUR-dok; born 11 March 1931) is an American business magnate, investor, and media mogul. Through his company News Corp, he is the owner of hundreds of local, national, and international publishing outlets around the world, including in the United Kingdom (The Sun and The Times), in Australia (The Daily Telegraph, Herald Sun, and The Australian), in the United States (The Wall Street Journal and the New York Post), book publisher HarperCollins, and the television broadcasting channels Sky News Australia and Fox News (through Fox Corporation). He was also the owner of Sky (until 2018), 21st Century Fox (until 2019), and the now-defunct News of the World. With a net worth of US$21.7 billion as of 2 March 2022, Murdoch is the 31st-richest person in the United States and the 71st richest in the world according to Forbes magazine. Due to his extensive wealth and influence over media and politics, Murdoch has been described as an oligarch. Murdoch was born and raised in Melbourne. After his father Keith Murdoch died in 1952, Murdoch took over the running of The News, a small Adelaide newspaper owned by his father. In the 1950s and 1960s, Murdoch acquired a number of newspapers in Australia and New Zealand before expanding into the United Kingdom in 1969, taking over the News of the World, followed closely by The Sun. In 1974, Murdoch moved to New York City, to expand into the American market; however, he retained interests in Australia and the United Kingdom. In 1981, Murdoch bought The Times, his first British broadsheet, and, in 1985, became a naturalised American citizen, giving up his Australian citizenship, to satisfy the legal requirement for American television network ownership. In 1986, keen to adopt newer electronic publishing technologies, Murdoch consolidated his British printing operations in London, causing bitter industrial disputes. His holding company News Corporation acquired Twentieth Century Fox (1985), HarperCollins (1989), and The Wall Street Journal (2007). Murdoch formed the British broadcaster BSkyB in 1990 and, during the 1990s, expanded into Asian networks and South American television. By 2000, Murdoch's News Corporation owned more than 800 companies in more than 50 countries, with a net worth of more than $5 billion. In July 2011, Murdoch faced allegations that his companies, including the News of the World, owned by News Corporation, had been regularly hacking the phones of celebrities, royalty, and public citizens. Murdoch faced police and government investigations into bribery and corruption by the British government and FBI investigations in the United States. On 21 July 2012, Murdoch resigned as a director of News International. In September 2023, Murdoch announced he would be stepping down as chairman of Fox Corp. and News Corp. Many of Murdoch's papers and television channels have been accused of right-wing bias and misleading coverage to support his business interests and political allies, and some have linked his influence with major political developments in the United Kingdom, United States and Australia. The Murdoch family was involved in a U.S. court case in which his three children—Elisabeth, Prudence, and James—challenged his bid to amend the family trust to ensure that his eldest son, Lachlan, retains control of News Corp and Fox Corp, rather than the trust benefiting all of his six children, as is specified in its "irrevocable" terms. In September 2025, they reached a settlement, giving Lachlan ownership of Murdoch's media empire.
Before the 1921 destruction of Tulsa’s Greenwood District, Black residents had created a remarkable center of business and community life. The district included stores, professional offices, entertainment venues and homes owned by Black citizens. Understanding Greenwood means learning what was built—not only what was burned.
MORE →Brown v. Board of Education in 1954.
