The strength of truth

The press is the strength of the word against the violence of weapons,
the strength of our fight for the truth

It dies martyr to Nazism precisely because of these words, which summarize his life as a priest and journalist. From a very religious family, he entered the order of Saint Teresa at a very young age. Having graduated in philosophy in Rome, he returned to his homeland and soon became rector of the Catholic University of Nijmegen. Collaborator of some magazines, he was then appointed assistant of the association of Catholic newspapers. In 1940 Holland was occupied by the Third Reich, to which the Church responded by inviting its priests to no longer administer the sacraments to those who openly professed National Socialism. Father Tito was taken in January 1942 from the Boxmeer convent and locked up in the Scheveningen prison in The Hague: «The number one enemy of German interests in the Netherlands is now harmless». Interrogations and torture begin for him.

Sent to forced labor in Amersfoort, he always remains serene thanks to faith in his Lord: «Suffering doesn't hurt, if you feel loved», and in the Madonna, who he compares to the «sunflower, the flower that represents the soul created in the image of God to absorb the splendor of his goodness." He secretly assists and comforts his companions, until the day he is killed with an injection of carbolic acid. The last words are for the Nazi nurse, to whom she gives her rosary; the converted woman will then testify at the canonical trial, thus revealing once again the moral greatness of the Carmelite father.


Annamaria Gobbato
NP March 2024