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Relics of Father Maurice Rondeau, who was killed by German Nazis, are seen displayed as Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg presides over the beatification Mass of 50 Catholic victims of German Nazis at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris Dec. 13, 2025. The French martyrs, who were either priests and committed lay Christians, all died in Germany between 1944 and 1945. (OSV News photo/Yannick Boschat, courtesy Notre Dame Cathedral)

Church beatifies 50 French Catholics killed ‘in hatred of the faith’ by German Nazis


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OSV News Filed Under: News, Saints, World News

Fifty French Catholics killed under German Nazism were beatified Dec. 13, 2025, during a Mass at Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris — an event that recognized their witness of faith during World War II.

Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg presided over beatification Mass in the presence of numerous priests, religious and bishops, including representatives of the German bishops’ conference.

The 50 martyrs “did not fear to offer their own lives to the point of shedding their blood to bear witness to the consolation and comfort of the Gospel,” and “shall henceforth be called Blessed,” read Pope Leo XIV’s apostolic letter that formalized the proclamation of the blesseds and also set their liturgical memorial on May 5.

In his homily, Cardinal Hollerich recalled that “All of them, without exception, made their lives, their activities, their imprisonment and their martyrdom a service, and what a service! They followed Jesus as true disciples, following in the footsteps of their Master.”

Father Raymond Cayré, a diocesan priest, Franciscan Father Gérard-Martin Cendrier, seminarian Roger Vallée, and layman Jean Mestre, were beatified along with 46 companions. They were part of the “Young Christian Workers” movement of the Catholic Action, with 14 beatified being members of the French scouts. The oldest was 47 and the youngest was 20. 

For French Father Bernard Ardura, former president of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, and postulator of their cause in Rome since 2018, these men are “martyrs of the apostolate.” “They went to Germany voluntarily, as Christians, and it was as Christians that they were arrested and died,” he told OSV News.

During World War II, France was under German occupation. In February 1943, the Nazi rulers set up the Compulsory Work Service (STO), through which 600,000 to 650,000 young French people were sent to Germany to replace German soldiers who had gone to the front in the factories. 

“Young men from middle-class families could get themselves exempted, but not workers, who knew about iron and metallurgy,” retired Bishop Maurice de Germiny of Blois in the Valley of Loire told OSV News. He worked on the cause at the request of the Archdiocese of Paris, which played an important role in the martyrs’ story. “These young people who left to work in Germany had no protection and found themselves in a spiritual desert,” he emphasized.

Faced with this, Cardinal Emmanuel Suhard of Paris decided that those workers could not be left without help. “He appealed to the bishops and religious superiors of France, asking them if priests and lay Christians would agree to volunteer to go to Germany to be ‘apostles’ to their fellow workers and bring them help and comfort,” Bishop de Germiny recounted. “He received a great amount of responses.” 

The 50 beatified “are those for whom we managed to gather the necessary documentation, but there were many others” that could be candidates to sainthood, he said.

Thousands of young people, priests, religious, seminarians, members of Catholic Action, and scouts thus committed themselves as workers. “They found themselves scattered across industrial areas for work, and they devoted themselves to supporting the young French people who were with them, through the sacraments and faith-related activities,” Father Ardura added. 

“It was called the St. Paul Mission, which was clandestine, but large in scope,” he said.

“In studying the lives of these boys, I was amazed by their behavior and by the self-sacrifice they showed,” Bishop de Germiny emphasized. “What sustained them was being able to get together, pray together, receive the sacrament of reconciliation, and communion, as they had done before the war, as much as possible. They did a lot to restore the joy of living to the workers around them.”     

“Their generosity was extraordinary,” Father Ardura added. “Each of their stories is very moving. One of them, Claude Lebeau, wrote: ‘I did not come to work for Nazi Germany, but I came to bring my brothers the help of faith in Jesus Christ.’ They knew clearly that they were going to face danger. One of the priests, Father Pierre de Porcaro, responded to Cardinal Suhard’s invitation by writing: ‘I accept with all possible generosity, everything, including dying in a foreign land, far from everything and everyone.'”

“For them, the terrible turning point was the Nazi Kaltenbrunner decree, issued on Dec. 3, 1943, which explicitly threatened to eliminate those who carried out religious activities among young French civilian workers,” Father Ardura explained. “It was the starting point for a wave of severe repression. They were sent under appalling conditions to the concentration and extermination camps of Buchenwald, Mauthausen, Dachau and Neuengamme, where many died of typhus, scarlet fever and exhaustion. Some were tortured, shot or beheaded, while some died in the ‘death marches’ when the camps were evacuated.”

The youngest was a layman, Jean Mestre. “He could have avoided going to Germany,” Bishop de Germiny recounted. “But he told his mother, when he was 19 years old: ‘I love you with all my heart, but I love Jesus Christ even more than you, and I feel that he is calling me to be with my comrades who are going through difficult times.’ He died when he was 20.” 

Another, Joël Anglès d’Auriac, had set up a clandestine Catholic scout movement in Germany. He was beheaded in Dresden on Dec. 6, 1944, at the age of 22. “We know that after going to confession, he received Communion and prayed the rosary,” Father Ardura said. “Then he said, ‘I am very calm, because I am going to (meet) Jesus Christ.'”

The oldest was Jesuit Father Victor Dillar, who was an intellectual, expert in international finance, passionate about youth education. Arrested by the notorious German police Gestapo, he died on Jan. 12, 1945, in the Dachau camp. 

“Before he died, he said he was offering his life for the church and for the working class,” Bishop de Germiny recounted.
     
For Father Ardura, all of them died “in hatred of the faith.” “The 1943 decree explicitly targeted priests, seminarians, and members of Catholic Action for their spiritual resistance,” he said. “Catholicism was considered a saboteur of Nazi ideology, and Nazism could not tolerate that,” Bishop de Germiny added. “This is what emerges from their trials.”

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