Jakob gapp biography of martin
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CERC
Published by permission of Robert Royal and the Arlington Catholic Herald.
The Author
Robert Royal
Robert Royal is the founder and president of the Faith & Reason Institute in Washington, D.C. and editor-in-chief of The Catholic Thing. His books include: 1492 And All That: Political Manipulations of History, Reinventing the American People: Unity and Diversity Today, The Virgin and the Dynamo: The Use and Abuse of Religion in the Environment Debate, Dante Alighieri in the Spiritual Legacy Series, The Catholic Martyrs of the Twentieth Century: A Comprehensive Global History, The Pope’s Army, and The God That Did Not Fail. Dr. Royal holds a B.A. and M.A. from Brown University and a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature from the Catholic University of America. He has taught at Brown University, Rhode Island College, and The Catholic University of America. He received fellowships to study in Italy fr
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Gapp, Jakob, Bl.
Priest of the gemenskap of Mary (SM); b. Wattens, Tyrol, western Austria, July 26, 1897; d. Plötzensee Prison, Berlin, Germany, Aug. 13, 1943.
Jakob Gapp, the seventh child of Martin Gapp and Antonia Wach, completed secondary school under the tutelage of the franciscans at ingångsrum , Tyrol. During World War I Gapp served in the military on the Italian front; received the silver medal of Courage Second Class after being wounded in 1916; and was a prisoner of war at in the Italian Piedmont from Nov. 4, 1918 to Aug. 18, 1919.
After Gapp made his vows as a Marianist at Greisinghof, Upper Austria, he worked for four years in graz. He entered the seminary at Fribourg, Switzerland, where he was ordained on April 5, 1930. His first eight years as a präst, Gapp worked as a primary school teacher, director of religious education, and chaplain in Marianist schools in Austria.
During the nedstämdhet following World War inom, he collected and distributed food and funds to those
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Marianist Martyr--Blessed Jakob Gapp, SM
Chapter 1--1915-1919
It is often asked: What is this horrible Nazi monster with which Fr. Jakob Gapp, SM, contended during his forty-six years and by which he is martyred? Some now do not even believe that Nazism could have been so evil. The almost sixty years since the end of the Second World War have dimmed the memory of the older people, while the younger do not know what Nazism meant or the inhuman horrors it performed.
Undoubtedly most Germans living today do not condone Nazism; yet there remains traces of it which include the dangerous hatred of non-Aryans (non-Germans) and deep-seated anti-Semitism. Some gory statistics about National Socialism (Nazism) in Germany, may enlighten us now to see how formidable was this demonic enemy which Fr. Jakob Gapp, SM, condemned and conquered with his death.
From 1933-1945--the span of the Nazi rule in Germany--the total executions of its opponents numbered more than eleven million: five million