Aid to the Church in Need: Obituary: Father Werenfried van Straaten

Obituary: Father Werenfried van Straaten

Posted by Obituary on 1/2/2003, 9:34 am
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Obituary: Father Werenfried van Straaten
Germany 31.01.2003. "People are better than we think" - this was one of the fundamental convictions underlying the life of the Norbertine religious, Father Werenfried van Straaten. And what he meant by this he himself demonstrated to his fellow men. As a Catholic priest and religious he devoted his life to the support of Christians facing oppression and suffering. The founder and for many years the leading figure in the international Catholic charity Aid to the Church in Need - a charity that was his own life's work and which today is one of the longest established Church aid agencies of the post-war period - died today at the age of 90, at 9.40 in the hospital of Bad Soden, according to information from the headquarters of the charity, which is based in the town of Königstein, near Frankfurt in Germany.
Werenfried van Straaten's charismatic style and the utter conviction of his commitment inspired a tidal wave of generosity in millions of people after all the devastation of the Second World War. Inspired by the commandment of neighbourly love, this Dutch religious - born the second son of a schoolmaster on January 17, 1913 in the town of Mijdrecht, Holland - brought into being something that no one had believed possible at the time. He appealed to the farming people in his chosen home of Flanders to support the starving German exiles from the East - their former enemies - with donations of food, blankets and clothing. Against all expectation his appeals unleashed a flood of generosity, and the sides of bacon given in response quickly earned him the affectionate nickname of "bacon priest" among his benefactors and beneficiaries alike
The campaign he launched in 1947 gave birth to the organisation known today as Aid to the Church in Need. From 1951 onwards his famous "chapel trucks" - old lorries converted into mobile churches - began to roll through the regions where the displaced German refugees were scattered. The year after this he began also to provide support for the victims of communism in Eastern Europe. In the 1960s this help was extended to cover Latin American, Africa and Asia as well.
All his funds came exclusively from private donations, in response to the appeals and sermons of the "Bacon Priest" himself or through the bi-monthly bulletin, the Mirror which he wrote. Right into the evening of his life the moving appeals of this powerful preacher were able to hold audiences spellbound and prompted an avalanche of generosity on behalf of Christians in need around the world. Some 700,000 benefactors still support his work today. Van Straaten's battered old English "hat of millions" with which he used to collect money at the end of his appeals, likewise became a famous sight.
Today Aid to the Church in Need continues to support suffering and oppressed Christians in over 140 countries around the world. Since the collapse of the Iron Curtain the charity has taken advantage of the new freedoms in the East to help rebuild Church structures in Eastern Europe and Central Asia. Seeing his high opinion of his fellow men and his invincible optimism, sceptics have often accused the "bacon priest" of naive idealism. His answer was always the same: "We should not dwell on inhumanity, murder and hatred. People are ready to make real sacrifices if only we have the courage to ask them." Many people - measuring by worldly standards - found his whole approach a riddle. And yet his life has shown that even today Christians with faith can still move mountains and in seemingly hopeless situations break through the vicious cycle of hatred, pointing the way towards hope and reconciliation among divided peoples.
As for the future, Aid to the Church in Need has no intention of abandoning the basic philosophy of its founder but will remain faithful to his ideal and continue to reach out in support of Christians in need around the world

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