Saint Rupert Mayer

Rupert Mayer (23 January 1876 – 1 November 1945) was a German Jesuit priest and a leading figure of the Catholic resistance to Nazism in Munich. In 1987, he was beatified by Pope John Paul II. Mayer was born and grew up in Stuttgart, one of five siblings. He finished his secondary education in 1894 and studied philosophy and theology in Freiburg, Switzerland; Munich and Tübingen. He was, among other things, a member of A.V. Guestfalia Tübingen and K.D.St.V. Aenania München, two Studentenverbindungen that belong to the Cartellverband der katholischen deutschen Studentenverbindungen. In 1899, he was ordained a priest and served for a year as an assistant pastor in Spaichingen before joining the Society of Jesus in Feldkirch, Vorarlberg, Austria (then Austria-Hungary) in 1900. After his novitiate, he went to the Netherlands for further studies between 1906 and 1911, and then moved about Germany, Switzerland and the Netherlands preaching missions in many parishes. In 1912, he was transferred to Munich, where his ministry was largely to migrants who had come to the city seeking employment. From 1914, Mayer volunteered as a chaplain in the First World War. He was initially assigned to a camp hospital; but was later made a Field Captain and sent to the fronts in France, Poland and Romania as chaplain to a division of soldiers. His bravery was legendary and he was held in great esteem by the soldiers. When there was fighting at the front, Mayer would be found himself crawling along the ground from one soldier to the next talking to them, and administering the sacraments to them. In December 1915, Mayer was the first chaplain to win the Iron Cross for bravery in recognition of his work with the soldiers at the front. In December 1916, he lost his left leg after it was injured in a grenade attack. He returned to Munich to convalesce and was referred to as the Limping Priest.