The Chaplain of Mont-Valerien

In his article “ Who guards the guard ?” Life and Work (April), the Moderator suggested ‘getting alongside‘ as a possible key hallmark of the work of the chaplain. He added that it may be because their work is done away from the gaze of congregations that chaplains have not been given the recognition which their work deserves.

Although venerated in France and Germany the name Franz Stock (1904-48) may not be familiar to many. His inspirational life and work of Christian mission should be as widely known as possible.

Throughout his short life Franz Stock was dedicated to bringing about Franco-German reconciliation. Central to his life’s work however were the four years (October 1940 -September 1944) he spent as chaplain to three Paris prisons to the resistants detained there by the Nazis. This work became more demanding with the first death sentences passed on resistants – the vast majority of which were carried out by firing squad at the 19th century fortress of Mont-Valerien.

On visiting detainees in the Parish prisons, he continued to wear his priest’s cassock rather than a military chaplain’s uniform. From December 1941 he began keeping his “ Journal des Fusilles”. This is a detailed record of all those he went with, ministered to and helped in various ways on their last journey on earth, to Mont-Valerien and its firing squad from one or other of the Paris prisons. The last entry is dated August 9 1944, just before Paris was taken by the Allies.

The document is testimony to the thoughtfulness and dedication with which he carried out his mission, listing no less than 520 named and 216 anonymous victims of these firing squads.

For these martyrs he carried out not only the standard pastoral duties and activities for believers, but much else besides.

He used concealed pockets in his cassock to carry innumerable messages, writings, photos, and other precious private objects between the condemned prisoners and their families and other loved ones. Following a request made to him by Louis Labonne, shot on November 20 1942, he began a practice of positioning himself on the rise behind the execution squad holding up a cross and bible.

He accompanied the newly dead to the cemeteries, sitting in the back of German army trucks, watching to see where in mass graves the bodies were put, taking note and getting word of the exact place back to the families and friends of those shot.

On the fall of Paris to the Allies in August 1944 Franz was held in successive POW tented camps at Cherbourg and Orleans where he ministered in difficult conditions to captured and wounded German troops. In March 1945 he was asked to take charge of a planned seminary for those German prisoners and theology students training for the priesthood which became known as the “Barbed Wire Seminary” and by Christmas of that year it was well established at Le Coudray on the outskirts of Chartres with more than 380 enrolled seminarians. When it closed two years later he returned to the Boniface Mission, his original appointment in Paris in 1934.

However, he collapsed and died on February 24 ,1948 at the age of only 43, worn out by the challenges of the war years.

His body now lies at the Church of St John the Baptist in the northern district of Rechevres in Chartres. On November 14 2009 the process for his beatification by the Catholic Church was opened. It continues today.

Bill MacDonald, Bonnyrigg, Midlothian