The Last Human Face: Franz Stock, A Priest in Hitler's Army. This item is unavailable.The Last Human Face: Franz Stock, A Priest in Hitler's Army

Father Boniface F. Hanley, O.F.M., has produced the only English language biography of the beloved priest Franz Stock, whom the Vatican has recently placed on the road to sainthood. This biography brings the reader directly into the cataclysmic world of wartime France during the German occupation, revealing levels of horror not seen before or since, woven in with the stories of heroic resistance fighters and dastardly collaborators alike who crossed Stock's path. It is a gripping tale that ultimately shows how a single holy man of peace--caught up in a nightmare landscape of unfathomable cruelty--single handedly fought evil simply by offering an example of courage, strength, and an unwavering faith in God. Stock became one of the few Germans revered by the French people after the war, which was fitting as his life-long mission was to heal the long-festering historical wounds between Germany and France. The story of how he accomplished this mission as a chaplain in the German army is both fascinating and a testament to the power of faith and determination to overcome evil using nonviolent means.

Brooklyn-born Fr. Boniface Hanley, O.F.M., was ordained a Franciscan priest in 1950. During his sixty years as a priest he has served his Order as an administrator, high school and college professor, missionary on Bolivia's vast Alto Plano, where he founded for his Aymaran Indian flock-perhaps the world's highest parish-a school and clinic at 13,400 feet. Illness sent him back to the States where he discharged a variety of pastoral duties until his recent semi-retirement. Working with fellow friar Salvator Fink, for 17 years he researched and wrote the biographies of Saints and Holy People published in the quarterly Anthonian magazine. This is his seventh published book. For the present volume, Fr. Boniface did research both in Germany and France and visited with the Stock family.