The name of an obscure Austrian farmer became known to me decades ago when a scholar friend published a book about him. His story inspired me then, and it still does now that he has received undreamed-of recognition.

That Austrian man’s name is Franz Jägerstätter, and he has just been declared blessed by the Catholic Church. His beatification, the last step before he is declared a saint, took place in the cathedral of Linz, Austria, last month,.

The book, In Solitary Witness, first appeared in l966, and was written by the historian Gordon Zahn, who was then on the faculty of UMass-Boston. Its significance came from the central figure ─ one of the few Austrian Catholics who publicly opposed Hitler.

The Vatican’s choices of people to be recognized as saints do not always please me. For instance, the church recently decided to so honor 498 Spaniards who were killed in the Spanish civil war by the forces opposing Franco. This decision.smacks to me of being more a political action than a religious one.

But the Vatican deserves praise for honoring Franz Jägerstätter, especially because he defied the Nazis despite church authorities who told him he was wrong to do so. The conscience of this farmer, who had minimal schooling, proved to be far more authentically religious than the stance of his bishop and the pastor of his parish.

Important to the story is Jägerstätter’s family. He and his wife had four daughters, a fact used by those who counseled him to report for duty in a war he recognized as evil. But he refused even while knowing this decision would lead to his execution and leave his family without him.

His wife Franziska, now 94, feels happy about his recognition by the church. At the beatification ceremony she wore red, the color of martyrdom. Even though his sacrifice made her life difficult, in retrospect she recognizes the value of his decision despite the effects it had on her family. His four daughters, now in their 60s and 70s, also attended the beatification liturgy.

In refusing to serve in Hitler’s army, Jägerstätter resisted pressure from dozens of people, officials and others, who continued to plead with him to reverse his stand. He was decapitated in a Berlin prison in August of 1943.

His executioners tried to terrify him by denying him a hood over his head and making him lie face up to the guillotine. His body was cremated and his ashes ultimately brought back to his native village, St. Radegund in Upper Austria, where he is now honored as a saint.

Of significance is the way this beatification and other factors have changed the church in Austria. For a long time after the war had ended, Austrians were generally reluctant to face up to their country’s collaboration with the Nazi regime. Now, all of the current Austrian bishops welcomed the honor given to Jägerstätter, an amazing turnaround for leaders of a church that had enthusiastically welcomed the Nazis in the 1930s.

When the 1938 Anschluss was proposed, whereby Austria would become part of Germany, the predecessors of today’s Austrian bishops had issued a command to all Catholics to vote for it. In 1939 one of the bishops instructed the troops: “It is God Himself who is behind what the Führer commands.”

My old friend Gordon Zahn, who first uncovered the story for American readers, todoes not know about Jägerstätter’s beatification. The historian, now 89, has suffered Alzheimer’s disease for years and recently entered into hospice care. How poignant that he will never be aware of what his book helped bring about!

To my mind, the life and death of one Austrian farmer shines out from the awful darkness of the Nazi era. His witness to truth, paid at such a great price, stands as an example for our time as well as his own.

What the leaders of the church did by way of acceding to Hitler still makes me cringe. Though only one person among so many, Jägerstätter leaves me with hope. He dared take a stand in conscience when everyone and everything said not to.

Normally I resist hero worship. So many of the people proposed by popular culture as heroic turn out to have hidden baggage. You have to be careful about putting your faith in any one person unreservedly.

About anyone who shows the way for others, Rabbi Abraham Heschel once said: “A prophet is a pain in the ass, by the grace of God.” I imagine that the newly recognized Austrian saint was difficult. Perhaps even more than we all are difficult.

But that’s not the point. As he grew into maturity he learned to put conscience first, even when that led to an awful fate. And it was a conscience solidly founded in a great spiritual tradition.

So I gladly recognize him as a saint and see him as a model for myself and others.

Richard Griffin