Werenfried van Straaten

Who was Werenfried van Straaten?

Father Werenfried van Straaten O.Praem. who came to be known as the "Bacon Priest", was a Premonstratensian priest known for his humanitarian work, particularly as founder of the international Catholic association Aid to the Church in Need. Born in Mijdrecht, Netherlands in 1913, he originally intended to become a teacher and enrolled at the University of Utrecht in 1932. By 1934, he had entered an abbey of the Norbertine Order, where he became the abbot's secretary, after a bout of tuberculosis that left him too weak for missionary work.

He first rose to public attention at Christmas, 1947, when he wrote an article entitled "Peace on Earth? No Room at the Inn," in which he appealed to all faithful to help the fourteen million German civilians displaced from the east at the end of World War II, six million of whom were Roman Catholics. These refugees and expellees resided in very primitive camps, mostly former Nazi concentration camps or Allied POW camps located in the western occupation zones of Germany and - for a minority - in the Netherlands and Belgium, and suffered from malnutrition and lack of medical care.