Friends of Franz and Ben Beginnings
In October of 2007, Dick Keough of St Lucy’s Parish in Syracuse, New York and Jack Gilroy of Holy Family Parish in Endwell, New York joined two Pennsylvanian Catholic Priests, Fathers Bill Pickard and Bernard Survil on a journey to Linz, Austria for the October 27th Beatification Ceremony of Franz Jagerstatter. At St Mary’s Cathedral in Linz, dozens of Priests, Bishops and Cardinals processed to the main altar where a huge black and white portrait of Franz slowly rolled down in splendid honor of the humble peasant farmer, Franz Jagerstatter. The peasant Franz was soon to be recognized by the Vatican as Blessed Franz Jagerstatter for his faith and courage in refusing to follow government orders to train to kill.
That evening, a wonderful dinner party in honor of Franz was held in the city hall of Linz, the city Hitler had called his home town. Americans and other members of Pax Christi International sat with members of the Jagerstatter family and Austrian historian, Dr Erna Putz. Later, Dr Putz proffered a book she had edited entitled Franz Jagerstatter: Letters and Writings from Prison to Gilroy, Keough, Pickard and Survil with the instructions to find a publisher in the US. We carried Dr. Putz's book to Orbis Press, where they saw the value of the letters immediately. Publisher Robert Ellsberg translated the letters, published the book and several years later sold the letters to Hollywood. Those letters became the basis for the movie A Hidden Life.
Immediately after returning from the beatification of Franz Jagerstatter in 2007, Survil, Pickard, Keough and Gilroy also set out to educate Americans about Franz Jagerstatter. The four founded Friends of Franz and established a website celebrating Franz at www.franzjagerstatter.com. A play about Franz, Render to Caesar, was written and premiered at the Columbus, Ga Convention Hall in the fall of 2008. Later, the play was offered free to copy and use from the Pax Christi website.
In 2010, Friends of Franz saw a need to recognize Catholic resistance to war in our own United States of America when we learned of World War l Catholic resister, Ben Salmon of Denver, Colorado. The Catholic historian, Gordon Zahn, who discovered Franz Jagerstatter and wrote the major best seller book about Franz, In Solitary Witness, advised one of his students, Torin Finney at Boston University to research Ben Salmon of Denver, Colorado. Finney's research was first published in his Master's Thesis and in 1989 Paulist Press published Finney’s work as Ben Salmon: Untold Hero of the Great War.
We poured over Finney’s book and a transcript of 250 single typed pages written by Ben Salmon in a Washington DC Insane Asylum (he was transported there in chains from Logan, Utah Federal Prison in the summer of 1920) and wrote a play entitled, Sentenced to Death for Not Killing:The Ben Salmon Story (link on Resources page). Similar to Render to Caesar, we designed the play to be performed at the 2010 annual School of the Americas convention. Played to a friendly audience, it was a smash success. At the end of the play, we introduced the daughter of Ben Salmon to the audience, the retired Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth Salmon in Ossining, NY. Over the past ten years, Friends of Franz evolved to Friends of Franz & Ben and have continued to focus on the need to reduce militarism in our nation and world. Aware that our own Catholic Church has often been silent in the face of runaway militarism, Friends of Franz & Ben want to uplift the courage and faith of Denver Catholic Ben Salmon and Austrian Catholic Franz Jagerstatter.
That evening, a wonderful dinner party in honor of Franz was held in the city hall of Linz, the city Hitler had called his home town. Americans and other members of Pax Christi International sat with members of the Jagerstatter family and Austrian historian, Dr Erna Putz. Later, Dr Putz proffered a book she had edited entitled Franz Jagerstatter: Letters and Writings from Prison to Gilroy, Keough, Pickard and Survil with the instructions to find a publisher in the US. We carried Dr. Putz's book to Orbis Press, where they saw the value of the letters immediately. Publisher Robert Ellsberg translated the letters, published the book and several years later sold the letters to Hollywood. Those letters became the basis for the movie A Hidden Life.
Immediately after returning from the beatification of Franz Jagerstatter in 2007, Survil, Pickard, Keough and Gilroy also set out to educate Americans about Franz Jagerstatter. The four founded Friends of Franz and established a website celebrating Franz at www.franzjagerstatter.com. A play about Franz, Render to Caesar, was written and premiered at the Columbus, Ga Convention Hall in the fall of 2008. Later, the play was offered free to copy and use from the Pax Christi website.
In 2010, Friends of Franz saw a need to recognize Catholic resistance to war in our own United States of America when we learned of World War l Catholic resister, Ben Salmon of Denver, Colorado. The Catholic historian, Gordon Zahn, who discovered Franz Jagerstatter and wrote the major best seller book about Franz, In Solitary Witness, advised one of his students, Torin Finney at Boston University to research Ben Salmon of Denver, Colorado. Finney's research was first published in his Master's Thesis and in 1989 Paulist Press published Finney’s work as Ben Salmon: Untold Hero of the Great War.
We poured over Finney’s book and a transcript of 250 single typed pages written by Ben Salmon in a Washington DC Insane Asylum (he was transported there in chains from Logan, Utah Federal Prison in the summer of 1920) and wrote a play entitled, Sentenced to Death for Not Killing:The Ben Salmon Story (link on Resources page). Similar to Render to Caesar, we designed the play to be performed at the 2010 annual School of the Americas convention. Played to a friendly audience, it was a smash success. At the end of the play, we introduced the daughter of Ben Salmon to the audience, the retired Maryknoll Sister Elizabeth Salmon in Ossining, NY. Over the past ten years, Friends of Franz evolved to Friends of Franz & Ben and have continued to focus on the need to reduce militarism in our nation and world. Aware that our own Catholic Church has often been silent in the face of runaway militarism, Friends of Franz & Ben want to uplift the courage and faith of Denver Catholic Ben Salmon and Austrian Catholic Franz Jagerstatter.