The Vatican announced this week that Pope Francis had approved the miracle that will allow Fr Titus Brandsma to be declared a saint. Fr Titus, a Dutch Carmelite, was martyred in Dachau Concentration Camp on 26 July 1942. He was a theologian, journalist and author who forcefully opposed and denounced the anti-Jewish laws that the Nazis were passing in Germany before World War II. When Germany invaded Holland, Fr Titus, working on behalf of the Catholic Bishops, fought, faithful to the Gospel, against the spread of the Nazi ideology and for the freedom of Catholic Education and the Catholic Press. For this he was arrested and sent to a succession of prisons and concentration camps where he brought comfort and peace to his fellow prisoners and did good even to his tormentors until his death by lethal injection.

In 2004 Fr Michael Driscoll, an American Carmelite, was diagnosed with advanced metastatic stage 4 melanoma. Without much hope of a cure doctors operated, and Fr Michael underwent 35 days of radiation treatment. During this time, he touched a small piece of Titus Brandsma’s black suit to his head and neck. He and a group of friends began to pray to Fr Titus asking for a much-needed miracle. Fr Michael, now 79, remains free of cancer to this day, something his doctors say is scientifically inexplicable.

More about Titus Brandsma here.

Read our previous story: A step closer to sainthood here.