80th Anniversary martyrdom of Beatus dishonoured by modern art in Vienna Cathedral

Vienna: Commemoration of the 80th anniversary of the death of Blessed Sister Restituta Kafka

Hartmann Sisters invite to event and service at the Vienna Regional Court on 30 March - Sr. Restituta executed in 1943 under Nazi tyranny

The impious statue by the notorious Hrdlicka, whose other work includes 

the Last Supper as a homosexual orgy, set up in Saint Stephen's Cathedral

On the occasion of the 80th anniversary of the death of Sister Restituta Kafka, the Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity (Hartmann Sisters) and the Restituta Forum invite you to a commemoration at the Vienna Provincial Court for Criminal Matters (Wickenburggasse 22, 1080 Vienna) on Thursday, 30 March. The event, which the President of the Provincial Court, Friedrich Forsthuber, has also agreed to attend, will begin at 5 p.m. in the Great Jury Courtroom and will be continued at the hour of death of the Blessed in the former execution room with a liturgy of the word.

What she actually looked like and a suitable image for devotion

The meeting point for all participants is punctually at 5 p.m. in front of the regional court, as the Hartmann Sisters announced. Participation requires an official photo ID, on-site registration and registration by 29 March at sekretariat@franziskanerinnen.org.

Before the commemoration in the Provincial Court, a memorial walk for Sister Restituta and the six tram workers from Vienna-Brigittenau who were executed with her will already take place from 2 p.m. to about 3.30 p.m.. The meeting point is the Restituta memorial plaque at Denisgasse 24 in the 20th district, the last home of the Kafka family before Helene entered the order. The tour ends at the memorial for Josef Friedl, Josef Krmarik, Ludwig Kupsky, Johann Plocek, Leopold Slaby and Friedrich Stix in front of the Brigittenau tram station (Wexstraße 13-15, 1200 Vienna). The organiser is the Working Group of Nazi Victims' Associations and Resistance Fighters.

Sister Restituta was arrested, sentenced and finally executed under the National Socialist tyranny because of her unwavering and consistent stand for faith, justice and human dignity.

Biographical details

Born Helene Kafka on 1 May 1894 in Husovice (Hussowitz) near Brno in Moravia, Austria's first martyr came to Vienna with her family at the age of two and first worked as an auxiliary nurse in the Lainz hospital. At the age of 19 she entered the Order of Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, where she received the religious name "Maria Restituta". After the First World War she came to the Mödling hospital as a nurse and made it to the position of senior surgical nurse.

The hospital in Mödling was not spared by the Anschluss in 1938. Sister Restituta refused to remove crucifixes from the sickrooms. This circumstance and two texts she had written critical of the regime were her undoing. She was arrested by the Gestapo on 18 February 1942 directly from the operating theatre and sentenced to death on 29 October 1942 for "aiding the enemy and preparing for high treason". Father Johann Ivanek celebrated a "last renewal of religious vows" with her in her cell on the day of execution - 30 March 1943 - and then accompanied her to the guillotine. At 6.21 p.m. Sister Restituta was beheaded in the Vienna Regional Court together with two other women, six tram workers and ten other condemned prisoners. Despite the Church's wish, the body was not handed over to the Order. Restituta, like about 2,700 other people, was buried anonymously in the so-called 40 group of the Vienna Central Cemetery.

Pope John Paul II beatified the nun on 21 June 1998 in Vienna's Heldenplatz. Her liturgical memorial day is on 29 October, the day of the death sentence.

The Franciscan Sisters of Christian Charity, also known as the Hartmann Sisters, are a religious order of the Catholic Church founded by women in Vienna in 1857. Their focus is on caring for the sick and elderly. The motherhouse with the generalate is located in Hartmanngasse in Vienna-Margareten. There are further branches in Vienna, Lower Austria and Argentina.

Source

See also the remarkable story of Franz Jägerstätter

The contrast could not be stronger than with Father Pius Parsch, one of the three masterminds of the liturgical reform who wrote to Cardinal Innitzer demanding that he be most supportive of the Nazis when they marched into Austria. Of the other two, Beauduin was a life-long Petainist, dying with a picture of the collaborating Marshall Petain in his cell and Casel was a member of the most right wing monastery in Germany.  One can infer a certain anti-semitism in his theology as he believed that Christian liturgy developed not from service of Temple and synagogue but from the Dionysian mysteries.  The monastery of Maria-Laach was the most Kaiser-true in Germany and when Hitler rose to power they put up his picture replacing that of the Kaiser.  They were the one monastery in Germany not to be raided by a Gestapo fishing mission.  They were the only one with a picture of Hitler hanging on the walls.