Fr. Max Josef Metzger, peacemaker, ecumenist, was executed by the Nazis in Germany, on April 17, 1944. After being a chaplain in the First World War, he began to work for peace. This, of course, brought him in conflict with the Nazi authorities when he sought ways to rpomote a negotaited end to the Second World War.
At a 1929 peace conference he said:
“The Peace Movement must make this radical activism its own with a holy conviction of conscience as Francis of Assisi, with a holy reverence for God’s created life which was withdrawn from the grasp of [humans] by the unqualified ‘thou shalt not kill,’ with the conviction of the divine power of a holy nonviolence in the service of the Kingdom of God, with the holy determination to realize this Kingdom of God all along the line. this is what will bring peace, this spirit of the ultimate, personal self-offering even at the cost of one’s own life, as Christ paid it on the cross, the self-offering for truth, justice, love, peace, for the Kingdom of God on earth.”
walk the way 