Titus’ Response to Religion and Public Life

The recent U.S. presidential and congressional elections raised important questions about the proper role for religion in candidates’ public lives and in the discussion of social policy issues. While the details are very different, the political situation in Nazi-occupied Holland, nearly sixty years ago, raises critical moral questions about the proper response to evil.

It was in this context that Titus stood his ground and became a public voice against the persecution of the Jews and the imposition of Nazi policies on the Catholic Church. His response should be of particular interest to anyone who listened to the recent American discourse about the proper role for religion in the public square.

When the Nazis invaded Holland on May 10, 1940, there were 140,000 Jews living there. Approximately 75% of these Jews were either killed in concentration camps or died during the inhuman transport to the camps. The Nazis succeeded in killing a larger percentage of Dutch Jews than in any other occupied country. Scholars still debate the reasons for this disproportionate destruction. These statistics provide the basis for ongoing debate about Dutch moral responsibility for this heavy toll on the Jewish community.

There is plenty of blame to go around on all sides. Some researchers point to the wellorganized Dutch civil registry, which listed all residents’ religion and address (which meant that the occupying Nazis had available an extremely efficient method of locating Jews), and point the finger at the Dutch civil service, which handed over the lists when asked. Other scholars cite geographic factors, such as a flat landscape without easy hiding places, and the fact that there was no escape, as all neighboring countries were also Nazi controlled.

Blame is also placed at the door of the Jewish Council, whose more wealthy and influential administrators cooperated with the Nazis in organizing the less affluent Jews for deportation. There is considerable discussion about the possible role of anti-Semitism in the Netherlands and the degree to which the everyday person did or did not cooperate with the German plans to deport all Jews. This debate goes on with full recognition of the very brave Dutch resistance and those Dutch men and women who risked their lives to hide or smuggle Jews to safety.

BI. Titus is on record as early as 1928 as opposing the anti-Semitism which was rearing its ugly head in Germany. In 1934, he continued to warn against a “cult of race and blood” and denounced any religion that saw God as only existing for one’s own group, as opposed to being a God for all. He counseled that, “every nation shares in the divine and has to gloriously express that divinity according to its own tendencies and nature”.

Titus is on record in 1939 as cautioning that the notion of Christian love appeared to be an anachronism in some parts of Germany where it was being replaced by the glorification of the German nation’s strength. The Dutch Catholic hierarchy was also on record as opposing the Dutch Nazi party and forbade the sacraments to anyone who gave “important support” to this arm of the National Socialist movement.

The Dutch army fought valiantly to repel the German invasion, but after four days and heavy damage to the country, the army capitulated and the Queen fled to London for the duration of the war.

Although the occupiers initially promised no sanctions against the Jews, the persecution began with what has been called “gradual insidiousness”, taking control of the central news agency, isolating Jews from other Dutch citizens, slowly making them more directly the object of attacks, and forbidding any voices of dissent. The Catholic Journalists’ Society was closed several months after the invasion.

In early 1941 the Nazis demanded the names of all Jewish children in Catholic schools, lowered the salary of any priests or nuns who were teachers, and forbad any religious to administer schools. Titus protested these restrictions with correspondence and public, personal lobbying at the Nazi-controlled Education Department. Several months later, when Jewish children were forbidden to attend Catholic schools, Titus happened to be the director of the organization of directors of Catholic schools. He wrote, “The Church makes no distinction of sex, race or people in carrying out her mission. We cannot refuse admission to anyone who wants a Catholic education.

By the time of the Catholic press had been ordered to accept Nazi announcements in December, 1941, Titus volunteered to be the point man for the Church on this issue and said to Archbishop de Jong: “They’ll find it easier to arrest you than me. I can act more easily than you: I can travel, advise and evoke a kind of fidelity that may astound everyone.” (Little did Titus know how his “fidelity” would continue to be a beacon to the Church nearly sixty years later.)

In his famous letter to the editors of the more than thirty Catholic publications, he wrote: “We have reached the limit.”, and delineated why the Catholic faith prevented cooperation with the latest Nazi edict. In January, 1942 he began his personal visits to these magazines and newspapers to exhort them to refuse Nazi advertisements, even though he knew this would cause personal hardship to the employees to whom he was most sympathetic.

Things came to a boil when the Catholic hierarchy issued a public letter against the Nazi edict and Titus’ Father Provincial cautioned him, “. . . the abyss is yawning beneath your feet; one must not rush towards martyrdom.” Returning from one of these personal visits to the Catholic press on January 19, the abyss opened up: Titus was arrested at the Carmelite monastery and began his imprisonment which ended in death at Dachau on July 26, 1942.

QUESTIONS FOR REFLECTION

How might Titus approach some of the controversy after World War II about the responsibility for the disproportionate destruction of the Dutch Jews? What might he have to contribute to the recent discussion in the U.S. about the proper relationship between politics and religion?

How can we demonstrate Titus’ “fidelity” to the important moral and political questions facing our society today, such as abortion, the death penalty, third world debt, economic injustice and inequality, consumerism, etc? What is the best response to moral ambiguity?

Have we, as individuals (or as a part of the Church), accommodated ourselves so completely to the society in which we live, that we can no longer recognize the conflict between our values and the prevailing social norms? Do we bring the zeal of Elijah and Titus to bear on these questions?