A Forgotten Hero This past May 22nd marked the fiftieth anniversary of the first Traditionalist Bishop to take a stand against the Modernist Vatican II sect. The name will be a surprise to many. It's not the name Lefebvre (he didn't come onto the scene until 1969), it's not Thuc (unheard of until the mid-1970s), it's not Mendez (he wouldn't be around until the late 1980s), and it's not de Castro Mayer (he fought to keep the Faith only in his diocese of Campos and would not do more until the 1980s). It was Bishop Blaise Kurz, a bishop of Faith and courage rarely ever seen, especially since the world-wide Deformation that was Vatican II.
When the historical revisionists of the Society of St. Pius X tell us that Archbishop Lefebvre was the "first and only" bishop to fight the Modernists (with Bp. Antonio de Castro Mayer a distant second place), I can't help feeling angry. In this post, I want my readers to know the truth about a brave bishop who is rarely (if ever) credited in the fight for "Truth and Tradition."
Who was Bishop Blaise Kurz? He was the only bishop from the Rhineland who was staunchly Catholic and refused to be won over by the likes of arch-Modernists Joseph Frings, and Bernard Alfrink. Blaise Kurz was born on the feast of St. Blaise, of a pious German Catholic family in the town of Sontheim in 1894. As was the case with many European Catholics, children were named after the saint's feast on which they were born (if the saint was of the other gender, the name of a saint with the same gender whose feast day was closest to the child's birthday got picked).
From an early age, Kurz felt called to the priesthood. On December 21, 1919, he was ordained to the holy priesthood by the great Michael Cardinal von Faulhaber of the Archdiocese of Munich. Cardinal von Faulhaber wasn't merely anti-Nazi, he wanted the restoration of a Catholic monarchy! Ironically, this brave prelate ordained two men to the priesthood who would clash directly at Vatican II---the aforementioned Blaise Kurz, and Joseph Ratzinger in 1951. The Cardinal passed in 1952.
Fr. Kurz was ordained a Franciscan, and as a loyal son of St. Francis, he spent the next 20 years of his life as a missionary priest in China, converting the pagans to the One True Church of Christ. On July 11, 1939, the 45 year old missionary was informed that the newly elected and crowned Pope Pius XII had chosen him to be consecrated as a bishop; with the pope himself as his principal consecrator. So it was that on the feast of Christ the King, October 29, 1939, Fr. Kurz was raised to the episcopacy by His Holiness with Archbishops Celso Constantini and Henri Streicher as co-consecrators at the main altar of St. Peter's Basilica.
The young bishop was assigned by the pope to the Diocese of Kokstad, South Africa. Kokstad is a small town on the slopes of the Drakensberg Mountains, in the province of KwaZulu-Natal, overlooking South Africa’s southern coast. The bishop spent the next eight years living in a large institute for the deaf and mute. While there, he met a Franciscan missionary priest from the Belgian Congo, who came there when an inner ear infection threatened to make him deaf. This priest was Fr. Adhemar DePauw, the older brother of Fr. Gommar DePauw who would found the Catholic Traditionalist Movement in 1964. Fr. Adhemar and Bp. Kurz, both zealous for the salvation of souls, became good friends. Soon after the outbreak of World War II, the Protestant British in charge of South Africa placed German-born Bp. Kurz under arrest because "Germans can't be trusted." Apparently, not even when they are Roman Catholic bishops appointed by the pope and have been law-abiding citizens all their lives.
Fr. Adhemar came to the rescue. Using his influence as a Belgian citizen, and with the help of his father's money, the government allowed the bishop to be bailed out and placed in Fr. Adhemar's custody. After the war, in 1948, Pope Pius XII appointed Bp. Kurz as the Ordinary of the newly created Diocese of Yungchow, China--putting him back in the country he loved and where he made many converts to the Faith. He took canonical possession of the diocese on May 21st of that year. The very next year, the Communists took over China, and Bp. Kurz was ordered back to Rome. He barely escaped with his life. As a reward for his Apostolic zeal, Pope Pius granted to Bp. Kurz the privilege of a "personal prelature" of sorts, whereby he retained Ordinary jurisdiction with all the rights of any other diocesan bishop even though his diocese was suppressed by the Communists.
In 1949, Bp. Kurz was invited by Francis Cardinal Spellman to take up residence in his Archdiocese of NYC--the Cardinal was virulently anti-Communist and thought the good bishop would like the United States. That same year, Fr. Gommar DePauw immigrated to the U.S. and was incardinated into the Archdiocese of NYC. His brother flew in from Belgium to introduce them--two anti-Communist, anti-Modernists taking up residence in the USA. Needless to say, they became good friends as well. From 1949 to 1962, Bp. Kurz spent his days much like a humble parish priest, except when asked by the Cardinal to perform a Confirmation. Fr. DePauw relates that the way he was degraded by some pastors was shameful; treating his German accent as "proof" that he was "an enemy of freedom."
Bp. Kurz and Vatican II In 1959, Angelo Roncalli ("Pope" John XXIII) called for an ecumenical council. This would be the beginning of the Great Apostasy. Bp. Kurz was entitled to attend. His Excellency called on Fr. DePauw to be his peritus (i.e., "theological expert") at the council. Father was now a canon lawyer, having obtained his doctorate in canon law (JCD) from Catholic University, Washington DC in 1955. He had been incardinated into the Archdiocese of Baltimore, where he was in charge of admissions, as well as professor of Canon Law, Moral Theology, and Latin at Mount St. Mary's Seminary. However, in December of 1961, Archbishop Francis Keough died and was replaced by "homosexual friendly" Lawrence Shehan from Bridgeport, Connecticut. His first act as the new Archbishop was to remove Fr. DePauw from his position in charge of admissions and appoint a Modernist priest who was "pastoral" to those who feel attracted to the same sex and think they may have a "vocation."
Bp. Kurz fought along side Cardinal Ottaviani and the other anti-Modernists with Fr. DePauw at his side. The bishop was told by Arch-Modernist Frings to "fall in line" with the Rhineland bishops and their heretical novelties, to which he replied he would never abandon the Catholic Faith. He even tried (in vain) to convince Leo Cardinal Suenens of Belgium to "come back to the Faith and leave those lousy traitors [i.e., the Modernists]" While most of the prelates stayed at the finest hotels in Rome, Bp. Kurz, ever mindful of the evangelical counsel of poverty, chose to stay at Villa Maria Regina, which at that time was a guest house of the Sisters of Notre Dame in Rome.
After the Council, Bp. Kurz was broken in spirit. Lest anyone start throwing stones, this was an unprecedented time of near universal apostasy, and he didn't know how to react. He was open to the idea of sedevacantism as his ordination of Gunther Storch to the priesthood clearly demonstrates. Storch was later consecrated a bishop by Abp. Thuc in the 1980s. On December 31, 1964, Fr. DePauw sent his Catholic Traditionalist Manifesto to every single Catholic bishop in the world, asking them to join him in preserving the Traditional Mass and "That, while truly respecting all non-Catholics who follow their conscience into what in candid honesty we must continue to call objective errors or partial truths, our bishops, priests, religious and laity alike renew their truly ecumenical efforts to proclaim the full unadulterated doctrine of Christ's Catholic Church in a world that desperately needs it." ---a slap at heretical ecumenism! Of the nearly 2,000 bishops, only Cardinals Ottaviani, Bacci, and Bishop Kurz publicly supported it and the newly founded "Catholic Traditionalist Movement" (aka "CTM").
When Fr. DePauw was ordered by Shehan to disband the Catholic Traditionalist Movement, Bishop Kurz intervened. With the help of Cardinal Ottaviani, Shehan signed the excardination papers for Fr. DePauw, and he was incardinated into the Diocese of Tivoli, Italy. The bishop of Tivoli then allowed Father to be incardinated under the direct episcopal jurisdiction of Bp. Kurz, who immediately ordered Fr. DePauw to continue his work with the CTM. "Cardinal" Shehan was furious! He denied signing the excardination papers and "suspended" Fr. DePauw. Bp. Kurz went toe to toe with Shehan, and on January 17, 1966 made the following public declaration carried by the news media; it read in pertinent part:
"I consider any attack on Father DePauw, at whatever the source or with whatever person that attack may originate, as an attack on my personal integrity as a bishop of the Catholic Church. I most solemnly declare that the statements released by Father DePauw to the media [about his being incardinated with Bp. Kurz after release by Shehan--Introibo] ...contain the truth and nothing but the truth." Then on May 22, 1966 at the Garden City Hotel in Long Island, NY, Bishop Kurz made the following historical step at a press conference when he stated to the world: "I recommend the Catholic Traditionalist Movement to all Catholics willing to defend our Church. While the active leadership of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement will remain with Father De Pauw, I have today accepted the position offered me by that Movement's Board of Directors, and will henceforth publicly function as Bishop-Moderator of the Catholic Traditionalist Movement."
Not one bishop was willing to join him! Bishop Kurz consecrated the Ave Maria Chapel in Westbury, NY on August 10, 1968. Fr. DePauw had purchased the Chapel from an Eastern Orthodox bishop who wanted to sell and move elsewhere. In 1968, 1969, and 1970, he administered Confirmation to all members of the CTM who needed it. He returned to West Germany, where he was despised by the German Modernists. They sought to have his faculties removed by their Satanic leader, Montini ("Pope" Paul VI). That never happened, as Montini did not want to make a martyr out of a brave missionary bishop, now in his 70s. Bp. Kurz refused to say the Novus Bogus, and publicly offered only the True Mass and Sacraments for small groups of German Traditionalists.
Fr. DePauw had built a beautiful Bishop's Residence across the street from the Chapel (which still stands unoccupied to this day) and invited Bp. Kurz to spend the rest of his days at the Chapel and not deal with the relentless heretics in his native Germany. Bishop Kurz agreed, only to fall suddenly very ill and unable to travel. When the good bishop asked Abp. Lefebvre, who started the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in 1970, to fill in for him and Confirm at the Ave Maria Chapel, the Archbishop responded in a letter to Fr. DePauw: "As far as Confirmation is concerned, it is clear that this is a very delicate thing for me to do…I have to be very prudent in this area." He ultimately declined to help a bishop who fought by his side at Vatican II. While I respect all the Archbishop has done, please remember this when the SSPX harps on how fearless Lefebvre was and how cowardly were all other bishops.
Bp. Kurz died in West Germany on December 13, 1973, at the age of 79. He never was able to set foot in his residence at Westbury, a place fit for a bishop. He was buried in the cemetery of the Franciscan seminary where he had been ordained to the priesthood 54 years earlier. He was placed in a grave with some 20 other Franciscan missionaries bearing the simple epitaph of "Missionary Bishop of China." No mention of his 54 years of service and suffering for the Church, and no mention of his defense of the True Faith and Church as Moderator of the CTM.(What else could be expected?) It's been said the truly great ones are the truly humble ones, so I guess it's only fitting that he was laid to rest as humbly as he lived his life, in imitation of Our Lord.
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