Pope canonizes Dutch priest, professor Titus Brandsma

Hundreds of Dutch people flocked to Rome on Sunday to witness the canonization of Dutch priest and resistance figure Titus Brandsma by the Pope. It was the first time in 15 years for a Dutch person to be canonized, or admitted to sainthood, according to Trouw.

Brandsma, born near Bolsward in 1881, was a priest, philosophy professor at what is now Radboud University and vocal opponent of Nazism. He was sent to Dachau concentration camp as a "dangerous person" and died there in 1942. Pope Francis canonized Brandsma on Sunday morning in Saint Peter's Square, where Dutch people cheered when his sainthood was announced, according to Trouw.

“Titus is an example," a 21-year-old Bolsward native, who had traveled to the event with his family, told Trouw. "Especially now that the war is going on in Ukraine. If you see how journalists are treated there too. Freedom of the press is not self-evident. I think you should be able to say whatever you want. Titus was a journalist himself and fought for that freedom during his life.”

Brandsma was beatified as a martyr in 1985. But in order to canonize someone as a saint, the Vatican requires a miracle to have been performed. Last year, an American priest named Father Mark Driscoll said Brandsma was involved in his healing from skin cancer with metastases. The Vatican recognized Driscoll's recovery as the required miracle, according to the NOS.

Residents of Bolsward told Trouw they hope this might bring interest to the local Titus Brandsma Museum. “Maybe Bolsward will become a place of pilgrimage, a place where believers come to be close to Titus," said Deacon Kees van Kordelaar, who works for the Titus Brandsma parish. "There is plenty of parking in town.”