For Such A Time As This: St. Edith Stein

Edith Stein was born into an Orthodox Jewish family in Breslau, Germany (now Wroclaw, Poland) in 1891. In a world full of challenges for women, Stein completed a PhD in Philosophy under Edmund Husserl and joined the faculty at the University of Freiburg. Armed with a voracious intellect, she was also in search of Truth. In 1922 at the age of 30, Stein was baptized into the Catholic Church.

Despite her Catholic faith, she never lost sight of her own Jewishness, nor of her responsibility to the Jewish people. In 1933 she was forced by the Nazis to resign her academic position, due to her Jewishness. Stein joined the Carmelite Order soon after and took the religious name of Teresa Benedicta of the Cross. Together with hundreds of other baptized Jews, she was arrested by the SS on 2 August 1942, sent to Auschwitz and murdered in a gas chamber. Stein was canonized by Pope John Paul II in October of 1998. Her Feast Day is celebrated today – August 9th.

Like a modern Queen Esther, Stein had tried to intervene with Pope Pius XI in April 1933 on behalf of the Jews of Europe. Her words ought to galvanize Christians and the Church today:

Everything that happened and continues to happen on a daily basis originates with a government that calls itself “Christian.” For weeks not only Jews but also thousands of faithful Catholics in Germany, and, I believe, all over the world, have been waiting and hoping for the Church of Christ to raise its voice to put a stop to this abuse of Christ’s name. Is not this idolization of race and governmental power which is being pounded into the public consciousness by the radio open heresy? Isn’t the effort to destroy Jewish blood an abuse of the holiest humanity of our Savior, of the most blessed Virgin and the apostles? 

Stein and her canonization are undoubtedly controversial for the Jewish community. Her hopeful expectation that the Jews would come to faith in Jesus and her belief that they needed atonement for their “unbelief” reflect the standard understandings of the pre-Vatican II Catholic Church.

But while Stein was canonized as a Catholic, she was murdered for her Jewishness. Particularly for Jews, these two parts of her identity cause great tension, perhaps an irreconcilable one. But for Christians, Stein’s dual identity might serve as a model for our own terrifying times. Are not all Christians to understand themselves in some mysterious way as Jews, grafted into Israel?

Edith Stein suggests a woman who knew who she was, in every sense, and was willing to pay the price for all parts of her identity. Are Christians today able to do the same, and stand together with the Jewish people in this time of real and present danger?