Quote
“Taize doesn’t exist to provide dogma, but to bring people together to discuss them and work through the messiness.”
| Gregory Stark, 21, a senior at Kenyon College and an Episcopalian who participated in a pilgrimage of the Taize community to Rome Dec. 28-Jan. 2. The gathering of 45,000 Christian faithful consisted primarily of young adults drawn to the French community’s emphasis on Christian unity through shared prayer, song and chant. (Catholic News Service)
Profile
Charlie Silva
Confirmation/youth minister, Holy Cross Parish, Kalaheo, Kauai
- Favorite saint: St. Cecilia (patron saint of musicians). She inspired musicians to gladden the hearts of people by filling the air with God’s gift of music.
- Holiday: Christmas
- Island: Kauai
- Church song: “Come and Journey” by David Haas
- Most memorable priest: Father Merle Fisher (He was my youth minister when I was a teen. He married me and my wife, and baptized our first child.)
- PC or Mac: PC
- Potato salad or mac salad: Mac
- Breakfast this morning: Yes
Saints under 35
Unflinching faith
After Adolf Hitler rose to power in Germany, Father Gerhard Hirschfelder dared to denounce the Nazi regime and fight its influence. He died in a German concentration camp as a result, but his bravery and determination were never forgotten: In 2010 Father Hirschfelder got one step closer to sainthood when he was beatified in Munster, Germany.
Blessed Hirschfelder was born in 1907 and was ordained a priest in 1932, a year before Hitler’s ascendance. Blessed Hirschfelder was vocal in his opposition to the Nazi regime, telling young people to resist its propaganda and stay away from the Hitler Youth. One homily, delivered in 1941, pronounced that “He who tears from the heart of young people their faith in Christ is a criminal,” according to L’Osservatore Romano, the Vatican newspaper.
After that homily, however, Blessed Hirschfelder — already declared an enemy of the regime — was arrested and sent to the concentration camp in Dachau. In 1942, the 35-year-old priest died from illness and hunger.
At Blessed Hirschfelder’s beatification Mass in September 2010, German Cardinal Joachim Meisner said the young priest’s bold opposition to the Nazis was not a sign of “recklessness,” but of “the power of faith.”
Source: Catholic News Service
