Venerable Richard Henkes

Richard Henkes (26 May 1900 – 22 February 1945) was a German Roman Catholic priest of the Society of the Catholic Apostolate (Pallottines). Henkes served as a teacher but was best known for his preaching abilities in the pulpit where he made strong-worded condemnations of Nazism and the actions the Nazis were said to have made. Henkes offered indirect assistance to the German Resistance during World War II and was one of the more vocal German priests to condemn Nazism. This often worried his superiors who believed that Henkes placed his schools at great risk. He was critical of the regime's murder of the disabled and other atrocities which forced the S.S. to arrest him. His first arrest in 1938 saw him released but his second arrest in 1943 saw him sent to the Dachau concentration camp. It was during that time that he befriended Josef Beran (future cardinal) who taught him the Czech language. Henkes' cause for beatification gained interest not long after he died though waned in the following decades until around 2000 when formal requests were made to launch the cause. The cause began in 2002 and Henkes was titled as a Servant of God. He was declared Blessed on 15 September 2019. Richard Henkes was born in mid-1900 in Ruppach-Goldhausen as one of eight children to a stonemason. His father often worked abroad as a stonemason so religious instruction to the eight children fell to their mother who used to sprinkle each of them with holy water each night before the children went to bed. His teacher Hans gave Henkes good reports when he was at school. On one occasion a Pallottine priest who served in the Cameroon missions came to the parish where he spoke of his work. This enthralled Henkes who began desiring joining the missions himself. Henkes entered the Pallottines in Limburg in 1919 not long after he completed his studies (passing his Abitur) under them which had begun earlier in Vallendar in 1912.