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Name:
Edith Stein
Religious Name: Teresa Benedicta
Dates:
Born: October 12, 1891 in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland)
Died: August 9, 1942 in Auschwitz, Poland
Baptized on January 1, 1922
Entered the Carmelite convent at Cologne: 1934
Beatified: May 1, 1987 (by Pope John Paul II)
Biography:
Edith Stein was born to an Orthodox Jewish family but in 1904 she renounced her
family's faith and became an atheist. When she attended classes at University of
Gottingen, she studied with Edmund Husserl and she would later become his assistant
when he moved to the University of Freiburg. It was here that she became more deeply
acquainted with Roman Catholicism and, after reading the autobiography of the St.
Teresa of Avila and this led to her quick conversion to Catholicism.
In 1934 she taking the religious name Teresa Benedicta of the Cross when she entered the Carmelite convent at Cologne, Germany. In 1938 she fled the growing Nazi pressures and entered the Carmelite the convent in Echt, Holland, but this proved inadequate to keep her from harm. On July 26, 1942 Hitler ordered the arrest of all non-Aryan Roman Catholics and so she, along with her sister Rosa (who had also converted to Catholicism), she was arrested by the Gestapo and sent to Auschwitz where she was sent to the gas chambers with other Jews.
Her beatification by Pope John Paul II has aroused Jewish anger because she is held up as an example of how Catholics were persecuted for their faith by the Nazis. The fact is, however, is that she is not a martyr for Catholicism - she was not killed because she was a Catholic but rather because she was of Jewish heritage. Many were also angered by her beatification because her fate was representative of how little the Roman Catholic Church did to protect the Jews, including those who should have been safe because they were under direct protection of church authorities.
It was, then, perceived as an insult when a Jew whom the Church failed to protect was held up as a martyr to Catholicism, rather than what she really was: a martyr to Judaism because of Catholic inaction.
Also Known As: none
Alternate Spellings: none
Common Misspellings: none
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