NETHERLANDS
Dutch News
Monday 06 January 2014
The Catholic bishop of Roermond has suggested a Limburg church official who was murdered in China in 1937 could be declared the patron saint of sexual abuse victims.
Frans Schraven, who was bishop of Zhengding at the time, refused to hand several hundred Chinese women over to the Japanese occupiers to work as prostitutes.
The women were under the protection of the Catholic authorities at the time. The Japanese authorities left the women alone but Schraven and eight other Catholics were then executed.
Vatican
This weekend, the Dutch Catholic church’s documentation on Schraven was taken to the Vatican where pope Francis will decide if he should be beatified.
Roermond bishop Franz Wiertz, who supports the beatification drive, suggested in a sermon on Friday that Schraven could eventually become the patron saint of abuse victims.
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