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Sainte Thérèse-Bénédicte de la Croix
(Edith
Stein, 1891-1942, a woman devoted to peace)
Born
and educated to Judaism, Edith Stein was a philosophy professor at
Wroclaw University (Breslau) in Germany. After becoming atheist, she
gradually turns to Christianity. Baptized in 1922, she became a
Carmelite in Cologne in 1934 without ever renouncing her Jewish
cultural and religious roots, still considering herself as belonging
to the Jewish people.
In the
years before her entering the monastery, she played an important role
while devoting a long time to some initiatives (conferences, books,
petitions) aiming at the acknowledgement of women’s rights, rights
which belong to any human being. Edith Stein was very early marked by
her feminine condition.
She
was the first woman to get a PhD in philosophy in Germany and she
personally committed herself to defend the possibility for women to
go to University and to teach there as well despite the important
reluctance voiced in the early 20th century.
At the
time of the Nazi invasion along with the Jewish persecution, she
goes to the Netherland in the carmel of Echt. Arrested on
August 2, 1942 by the SS, she is deported and dies “for her folk”
in Auschwitz on August 9, 1942.
Canonized
in 1998, Edith Stein is proclaimed co-patron of Europe by
Jean-Paul II on October 1st
, 1999.
Extract
from Jean-Paul II’s sermon, on October 1st
1999 :
“To
proclaim today Edith Stern co-patron of Europe means to unfold
on the horizon of the old continent a standard of respect, tolerance,
welcome, which invites men and women to understand and accept each
other beyond the diversities of race, culture and religion so as to
form a truly fraternal society”.
