Jesuit Crusader

In Munster, one evening last week, everyone seemed to be hurrying to Ludgerus Square. They poured through the streets of the bomb-blasted old German town, past posters proclaiming "The City Comes to Hear Pater Leppich!" and under streamers announcing "Pater Leppich Speaks." Staring down from smashed churches, lampposts and walls were countless pictures of a craggy-faced Roman Catholic priest.

By 8 p.m., 40,000 were in the square, young people and old, Communist workers from the fringe of the Ruhr, solid Catholic burghers, even ten busloads of Dutch Protestants who had trekked across the border. They had come, as crowds throughout the length of West Germany have come, to hear the man who has variously been called the "Modern Savonarola," the "Red Father," sometimes the "Black Goebbels." They waited before a little open patch in the square in which stood a single microphone and an empty margarine crate.

"The Social Swine in You." At five minutes past the hour, a slim, cassocked figure, his waist bound with a black velvet sash, climbed on to the crate. The babble of voices fell silent, as Father Leppich began to speak. He reminded his audience of the Germany of a distant past, of an age of faith, then brought his listeners up sharp with an accusing question: "Yes, we built cathedrals and churches . . . but what did you make of our churches? Barracks, stables, bordellos and nightclubs! Did it make you happier? We poured bells which reminded men daily of the good Lord . . . You made bombs out of them."

City officials in the front row almost winced before the tensed, gesticulating hands of the 38-year-old Jesuit. His voice dramatically softened: "It is not the church's job to solve all the questions of society. But we do exhort you to a crusade against passiveness and smug satisfaction." A pause, then the loudspeakers fairly rattled: "Against this and the bit of social swine that lies in all of you."

Johannes Leppich, son of a Silesian farmhand, was a Jesuit novice when the Nazis thrust him into the Reich Labor Service. He chopped trees in Pomerania, he played in Labor Service bands, he served in the army, and finally returned to the Jesuits. After Germany's defeat, he preached to refugees from the Eastern zone and former soldiers. But he yearned for a larger challenge. In 1949, in a circus tent in Essen, he began a "crusade for ethical revival."

Whores or Godmothers. Up and down Germany, he travels in his station wagon, and in each town the pattern is the same. With from one to three assistants, he begins by pasting up posters, tacking streamers to buildings, furnishing the local movie house with slides advertising his talks. Then he interviews city officials for a briefing on local problems, and prepares a set of three public speeches--one on religion, one on social and political affairs, a third on sex and morals.

Father Leppich winds up his public speeches at about 10 p.m., then makes for the nearest Roman Catholic church to hear confessions. Often people of other faiths and of none, including Communists, turn up along with the Catholics. He finishes in the early dawn, then retires to the local parish house, where he sleeps briefly, nibbles at fruit, vegetables and milk, and prays when he has a free moment. "As a good Jesuit, I need three hours of prayer daily," he says.

By the time he ends his talk in any town, as he did last week in Muenster, the crowd stands in darkness, and a single light shines down upon Leppich's head. "I was in Bremerhaven recently," he thunders, "where American troops disembarked on to German soil. Do you know what we Germans hold out to these boys as a calling card? Whores . . .

"You, the 6,000,000 women of Germany who will find no husbands, whose husbands-to-be died all over the world . . . you are Germany's fairy godmothers. Only you can break the spell of evil magic. Only then will our people have a future, when it can again look upon virtuous and clean women."

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