Bl. Karl Leisner

Karl Leisner was born in 1915 in the Rhineland, Germany. He was active in Catholic youth work and entered the seminary of Münster, whose bishop was Clemens August von Galen, an outspoken opponent of Hitler.

While still a deacon, he was arrested in 1939 after he told someone he regretted that an attempt on Hitler's life had failed. He was eventually sent to the Dachau concentration camp. There, on December 17, 1944, a fellow prisoner, Bishop Gabriel Piguet of Clermont-Ferrand, secretly ordained him a priest.

The camp was liberated by the Americans soon afterwards, but Leisner was gravely ill with tuberculosis. He died at Planegg near Munich on August 12, 1945, aged thirty. John Paul II beatified him in 1996.

Karl Leisner was beatified in 1996 by John Paul II.

Beatification allows public veneration, usually in a particular region or religious family. Canonization extends it to the whole Church.