He lived and died for the peace of nations and the reunion of faith. – A celebrant at Blessed Max Josef Metzger’s burial
Today, the Church celebrates the martyrdom of Blessed Fr. Max Josef Metzger, a German priest who was executed by the Nazis on April 17, 1944. Fr. Metzger’s life and death were committed to the cause of peace.
He was born in Schopfheim and was raised in this primarily Protestant town. Fr. Metzger’s father forbade interactions with their non-Catholic neighbors, a stance which is interesting given his son’s later commitment to ecumenical activities.
While studying for the priesthood, Fr. Metzger demonstrated both zeal and obstinacy, choosing to abstain from alcohol, meat, and tobacco while at times resisting the guidance of his teachers. Nevertheless, Fr. Metzger earned a doctoral degree in theology in 1910 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1911.
When the first World War broke out, Fr. Metzger volunteered as a military chaplain. Due to his war-time experience, he embraced pacificism and, following his discharge from the army, he began to focus his efforts on the creation of peace. He also began to work passionately to address social ills like alcoholism and poverty. Fr. Metzger’s radical approaches upset the clergy, eventually causing Archbishop Gröber of Freiburg to criticize his “penchant for things extreme and things odd.” One wonders if these years of following his own conscience — despite the disdain of those around him — later helped Fr. Metzger to live faithfully when the political situation in Germany changed for the worse.
In 1917, Fr. Metzger developed a peace plan for Europe; however, he was banned from publishing it in German Catholic publications. Undeterred, Fr. Metzger met with the Apostolic Nuncio who sent the plan to Pope Benedict XV. The Pope, who was supportive of the peace plan, permitted Fr. Metzger to establish the “World Peace League of the White Cross,” an organization which focused on peace that goes beyond the absence of war and ensures international justice.
Following the war, Fr. Metzger became an advocate for the League of Nations, which he initially saw as a way to bring about lasting international peace. At this point, Fr. Metzger’s political activities were somewhat complicated from our present-day perspective: some of his writings and activities contain echoes of Bolshevism. However, as his views on the impotence of the League of Nations crystallized, it became apparent that Fr. Metzger straddled a range of political and economic philosophies. He viewed politics and economics as a means to the end of justice and peace rather than an end in themselves. In other words, politics’ only value was its ability to further the peace that Fr. Metzger believed God desires. Thus, he was not bound by any particular ideology. However, this did not prevent his detractors in the Catholic press from labeling him a communist and socialist.
Interestingly, during this time Fr. Metzger was involved in advancing many of the liturgical reforms that would eventually be implemented in Vatican II. He felt that it was important to increase lay participation in the Mass and, along with other German priests at the time, introduced hymns in the German language and the celebration of the mass with the priest facing the people.
Meanwhile, during the decade from 1923 to 1933, the Nazi party was slowly gaining power in Germany. As the political environment in Germany became more volatile, Fr. Metzger became increasingly concerned about the growing unrest in Europe. In fact, the year before Adolf Hitler final ascent to power, Fr. Metzger sent an appeal to Pope Pius XI, asking him to intervene in the continent’s descent into war.
Fr. Metzger clashed with the NSDAP (Nazi party) from the very beginning. He condemned antisemitism, though, like many from the time, he sometimes failed personally in this area. The father was also quite privately critical of Hitler. In fact, at times he spoke about the right to topple a government to bring about justice.
His support of the artist/satirist, George Grosz, was an interesting aspect of Fr. Metzger’s resistance to the Nazi regime. Due to the politically provocative nature of Grosz’s art, his work was labeled “degenerate” and he was taken to court. One of the pieces that was central to the court case, entitled “Christ with the Gas Mask,” offers a clue as to why Fr. Metzger was so willing to defend the artist. In a deposition Hans Albrecht said,
The picture cries out to the world the terrible accusation: “What have you done to me? I made you children of God and brothers, and gave you peace; you have clamped me into your war machine. You make war in my name! I preached love to you; you have twisted my sermon to do the opposite and in my name, you have used all sorts of murderous instruments, poisonous gas, and flame throwers.
In 1934, Fr. Metzger spoke out about the Church’s complicity in the NSDAP’s “idolatry of power” and aggressive foreign policy. He was arrested after anonymously publishing “The Church and the New Germany” as a critique of the Reich Concordat of 1933. This was an agreement between the Catholic Church and the German government which guaranteed that the Church would maintain certain rights in exchange for the silence of clergy on political matters.
In defiance of the Concordat, for the next ten years, Fr. Metzger continued to defy the Nazis, resulting in his increased persecution. His ecumenical meetings were frequently harassed by members of the Gestapo and, in 1936, he was accused of alleged currency fraud. Then in 1939, Fr. Metzger was arrested and held prisoner for several weeks due to suspicions that he had been involved in an attempted assassination of Hitler. Of course, the veracity of either of these accusations is dubious. During his incarceration, he wrote to Pope Pius regarding the sorrow that he felt because of the war between Europe’s Christian nations. In his letter, he wrote: “The misery of the age — through which God speaks to us — makes it absolutely imperative to overcome the Christian Church’s inner strife to allow Christ’s reign of peace to take effect.”
To do this, Fr. Metzger believed that the Church must engage in “turning away from the paths of self-righteousness, blindness and pride to Christ, the Prince of Peace, the King of Love.”
Fr. Metzger’s continued dedication to the cause of peace often manifested in his ecumenical work. He established the Una Sancta Brotherhood, a group that focused on building relationships between Catholics and Lutherans and was based on Jesus’s prayer in Gethsemane that “they all be one.” Una Sancta held meetings, lectures, conferences, and opportunities for fellowship. These events began and ended with a common prayer (ex: the Apostles’ Creed or the Our Father) and often involved talks given by two speakers from different religious confessions. Eventually, in another foreshadowing of Vatican II, Fr. Metzger petitioned Pope Pius XII to hold an ecumenical Church Council.
By 1943, Gestapo spies had infiltrated Fr. Metzger’s ecumenical groups, leaving him vulnerable. Upset by the war with Russia and increasingly convinced that Germany would not win the war, Fr. Metzger wrote a post-war plan which he attempted to send to England. The plan was intercepted by a spy in Una Sancta and Fr. Metzger was arrested. He was sentenced to death by guillotine for “aiding and abetting” the enemy.
In what some consider to be a last ditch effort to intervene, Archbishop Gröber — the same man who had previously complained about Fr. Metzger’s intensity — apologized for Fr. Metzger’s “crimes” and suggested that, rather than being killed, he could be allowed to atone for them by dying on the battle front. Others have found this intervention to be disingenuous, given Archbishop Gröber’s mixed history with the Nazi government and liturgical differences with Fr. Metzger. Regardless, the plea was denied and Fr. Metzger was killed at Brandenburg Prison.
According to a friend, after receiving the death sentence, Fr. Metzger said:
Now it is over, I am at peace. I have offered my life to God for the peace of the world and the unity of the Church. If God accepts it, I will be glad; if he grants me a longer life, I shall also be thankful.
Blessed Max Josef Metzger was beatified almost twenty years ago, on May 8, 2006 and it seems as if the currents of his life are a potent reminder and encouragement in this present moment.
Image: A Nazi Tunnel – “Underground” (CC BY-ND 2.0) by Croydon Clicker
Ariane Sroubek is a writer, school psychologist and mother to two children here on earth. Prior to converting to Catholicism, she completed undergraduate studies in Bible and Theology at Gordon College in Wenham, MA. She then went on to obtain her doctorate in School and Child Clinical Psychology. Ariane’s writing is inspired by her faith, daily life experiences and education. She is currently writing a women's fiction novel and a middle-grade mystery series. Her non-fiction book, Raising Sunshine: A Guide to Parenting Through the Aftermath of Infant Death is available on Amazon. More of her work can be found at https://mysustaininggrace.com.
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