It takes courage
to face an armed
enemy, to champion an
unpopular cause, to
practice your religion
when it pits you against
the party in power. The
friars pictured here have
this in common: They stood
for something. It may have been
an idea, a group of people who needed a champion, the right to worship as they pleased.

In the way of St. Francis, they were preaching by example. “I have done what was mine to do,” he told his followers on his deathbed. “May Christ show you what is yours to do.” In doing “what was theirs,” friars have often faced persecution, prison, or clear and present danger.

As these stories illustrate, there are many kinds of heroes. Shutterstock/Mikhail
Freedom was a gift Fr. Frank Frey never took for granted. For 39 years he ministered as a parish priest and hospital chaplain, but his special empathy was for refugees, those who came to America in search of liberty and opportunity, as he himself had done in 1950. Hungarian-born Frank was ordained a Franciscan priest in his homeland in 1943. Recruited by Cardinal Joseph Mindszenty, he joined a band of priests who traveled the country as missionaries, dispensing a message of hope to those living under Nazi oppression, then under Russian rule. Perceived as a threat to those in power, Frank was arrested and imprisoned in 1946. Two years later at his trial, he was sentenced to 16 years of hard labor in the lead mines of Siberia. Warehoused with 5,000 other inmates in a dungeon 200 feet underground, Frank endured beatings three times a day and suffered a broken arm and leg as part of his
“punishment.” By the time he
escaped the prison with the
help of friends, his weight
had dropped to 88 pounds. With no money, no papers, no food, Frank made his way to Austria, sheltered along the way by many who
risked their lives to help.
Arriving in the United States
in 1950, he joined the Cincinnati-based Franciscans
and eventually realized
his dream of
becoming an
American citizen.
To the men
he served
with in Korea, Fr. Herman Felhoelter was “The Padre.” To the rest ofthe world, his name was synonymous with sacrifice. In the years after ordination in 1939, Herman was a teacher, a chaplain and an assistant pastor — but his heart was in the military. Commissioned a captain in the Army’s Chaplain Corps in Europe in World War II, he took home a Bronze Star for meritorious service under fire. Soon after hostilities erupted in North Korea in June of 1950, Herman joined the 19th Infantry Regiment on the Kum River near Taejon. On July 16, nearly 30 U.S. soldiers were wounded in
intense fighting with North Korean forces. The regiment’s only option was to push
on to Taejon — without the wounded.
When the Catholic and Protestant chaplains drew numbers, it was Herman who “won” the right to stay with his men. “So long, kid,” Herman told his assistant. “I’ll see you — if not on the other side, I’ll see you in heaven.” Later that day, a sergeant watching from a nearby ridge was horrified to see the enemy overrun the band of wounded soldiers and kill them where they lay. Herman was reportedly bayoneted as he knelt, praying over a wounded comrade. He was posthumously awarded the Distinguished Service Cross for extraordinary heroism.
They threw him in jail,
took away his books, his
eyeglasses, even his shoes.
But they couldn’t break his
spirit. His devotion to his faith and to the people of China helped Fr. Sigfrid Schneider survive 29 months — most of it in solitary confinement — in a Communist prison. A native of Louisville, he was one of 10 men in his family (including nephew Chris Schneider) who gave their lives to the Franciscan Order. Four months after his ordination in 1931, Sigfrid sailed to China, working as a teacher and pastor at the Franciscan Mission in Wuchang, Hupeh. From 1943-’45, he was confined to house arrest in Shanghai by the invading Japanese. Concerned about papal influence in China, Communists who rose to power in 1949 imprisoned both Sigfrid and his bishop, Rembert Kowalski. Closely guarded, instructed to “meditate on his crimes,” Sigfrid spent his days in prayer, unraveling his socks and tying the threads together to fashion a homemade rosary. His ingenuity was his saving grace. After his release from prison, he was expelled from China on trumped-up spy charges but returned to the Far East in 1954 to help the friars establish a presence in Japan. There he died in 1987. His homemade rosary is one of the most treasured possessions in the Franciscan Archives in Cincinnati.
Forty-seven years ago, the attempted integration of Southern schools was met with protests and violence. While America saw it unfolding on TV, Fr. Chris Schneider was living it. As pastor of Our Lady of Good Harbor in Buras, La., Chris led the drive to make his parish school the first in the state to admit black children. In the summer of 1962 Judge Leander Perez, a local political boss and staunch segregationist, rallied the opposition. On Aug. 29, Chris stood watch at the door as five black children walked past a sound truck blaring Dixie and signs that read, “Keep our schools white,” to enter Our Lady of Good Harbor School. They were accompanied by 38 white children — a fraction of the 300-plus who were enrolled. In the months that followed, during a school boycott orchestrated by Perez, Chris and his fellow friars in Buras endured death threats — “Go back North,” they were warned — a firebombing of the school and a shotgun assault on the friary. Reportedly warned away by cronies of Perez, the
black children did not return to school
after that first day. The story of the
standoff and Chris Schneider’s role as an
advocate for integration was recounted
in an hour-long episode of CBS Reports entitled, “The Priest and the Politician.”
At the age of 63, Br. Robert Hozie left all that was familiar — his work as a seminary teacher
and as a pastoral minister in the
Midwest — to follow a path that
was largely uncharted. Bob
moved to Houston, becoming
a missionary to people with with HIV-AIDS. There, along
with fellow friar Dennis
Borca, he founded the
Kolbe Project, a non-
denominational agency (opened in 1989) that offered help and hope
to those affected by HIV-AIDS through
spiritual direction, recovery counseling,
retreats, hospital/home visits, worship services,
adult education and memorial services. It was Bob’s
proudest achievement in 57 years as a friar. The Kolbe Project was named for Fr. Maximilian Kolbe, a Polish Franciscan who ministered to fellow prisoners at Auschwitz during World War II and was later
canonized. In 14 years with the Houston project,
Bob extended unconditional compassion to those
who felt alienated by their illness; he fought
fear and misunderstanding with peace and
reconciliation. In 1999 at the project’s 10th
anniversary celebration, the chapel at Kolbe
offices was re-named “The Bro. Bob Hozie
Chapel” in honor of “his tireless efforts
and contributions.” When Bob died
following surgery at the age of 77,
he was memorialized as “a true
Franciscan.”
What would you risk for your faith? Sixty years ago, friars in Slovakia risked imprisonment and banishment to follow the teachings of Francis. The legacy of Fr. Bartholomew Koltner, Fr. Paul Wild and Fr. Theodoric Zubek was their perseverance in the face of coercion and intimidation. In April of 1950, all were detained in “concentration monasteries” during the Communist takeover of Slovakia which decreed the disbanding of religious orders. Bartholomew escaped across the border to Austria in 1951 and made his way to Rome to finish his studies. Migrating to America, he distinguished himself in pastoral ministry, as editor of Listy s. Frantiska, and as a notary in the marriage tribunal of the Dioceses of Gary and Joliet. Paul had taken only his first vows when he was herded into detention. For 18 years, he lived secretly as a friar while enduring forced labor and Communist indoctrination. He seized his chance for freedom in 1968, defecting to Italy after obtaining a visa to visit relatives in Austria. His dream of priesthood was finally realized when he was ordained in 1972 in the Garden of Gethsemane. Theodoric escaped a concentration monastery in 1951 and later described the persecution by Communists in his book, The Church of Silence in Slovakia. He rose to prominence as Custos of the Pittburgh-based Vice Province of the Holy Savior, which also welcomed Paul and Bartholomew.
In 1209, Pope Innocent III approved a plan by Francis of Assisi for a new way of religious life. This year, Franciscans around the world are marking the Eighth Centenary of the founding of their Order. In 1859, the entity that became St. John the Baptist Province in Cincinnati was formally erected as a “custody.” This 12-part series, commemorating the 150th anniversary of the province, celebrates the lives and contributions of the friars.

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