Jong de Johannes

Cardinal Johannes de Jong Johannes de Jong was born in 1885 in Nes, a small village on the Dutch northern island Ameland. After studying at Catholic seminaries in Culemborg and Rijsenburg, he was ordained to the priesthood in 1908. Afterwards, he earned doctorates in psychology and theology. In 1936, Johannes de Jong was appointed Archbishop at the Archdiocese in Utrecht. During the in the 1930s, as the National Socialist Party rose to power in Germany, de Jong opposed its ideology. Following the German occupation of the Netherlands in 1940, he continued doing so in every possible way. De Jong ordered his priests not to preform sacraments for members of the Dutch Nazi party (NSB). He also instructed not to comply with a Nazi decree that ordered the placing of 'Forbidden for Jews' signs at the entrances of Catholic Churches. In July 1942, following the launching of mass deportations of Dutch Jews, de Jong along with the leaders of the Protestant churches, planned to openly protest these actions. At the last moment, however, the Protestant churches succumbed to Nazi pressure and withdrew from the joint protest. Subsequently, on July 26, in accordance with de Jong's order, Priests at all Catholic churches in the Netherlands, read a Pastoral Letter that condemned the deportation of Jews. The Nazi authorities retaliated by arresting more than two hundred Catholics of Jewish descent, among them philosopher Edith Stein. In addition, de Jong provided financial aid to a the Utrechts' Kinder Committee, a student underground group, that hid Jewish children from Amsterdam in southern Holland. Moreover, he also hid the groups' code book in a safe in the Archdiocese. The book contained the real names of Jewish children in hiding, so they could be traced after the war. It is also apparent that children in acute need of a temporal hiding place, found refuge in the Archdiocese of Utrecht. In 1946, Pope Pius XII appointed Johannes de Jong as Cardinal. He suffered from poor health and in 1951 he was forced leave the administration of the archdiocese to his coadjutor. Cardinal Johannes de Jong passed away in 1955. During his life he received the civil Dutch distinction 'Knight Grand Cross in the Order of the Dutch Lion'. In 2021 he was posthumously awarded the title 'Righteous Among the Nations' by the State of Israel, for his courageous actions on behalf of the oppressed Jewish citizens of the Netherlands. On 21 June 2021 Yad Vashem recognized Cardinal Johannes de Jong as Righteous Among the Nations