The Servant of God Franz Stock (21 September 1904, Neheim – 24 February 1948, Paris) was a German Roman Catholic priest. He is known for ministering to prisoners in France during World War II, and to German prisoners of war in the years following. The cause for his canonization has been accepted by the Holy See. Early life Stock was born the first of nine children of a worker family in the village of Neheim-Hüsten (now part of Arnsberg), in the Province of Westphalia of the German Empire. From 1910 to 1913, he attended a Catholic elementary school. At the age of twelve Franz expressed a wish to become a priest. In 1926, he participated in an international peace meeting in Bierville near Paris, which was organized by Marc Sangnier under the motto "Peace via the young!" There Franz became friends with Joseph Folliet (1902–1973), who grew up to become a noted Catholic writer and who greatly influenced him. That same year, he entered the Catholic seminary in Paderborn. In the spring of 1928, Stock went to Paris, France, where he spent three semesters studying at the Institut Catholique. During this period, he became a member of the Compagnons du saint François (Companions of St. Francis), a fellowship committed to living a simple life and working for peace. He was the first German student of theology in France since the Middle Ages. Stock was ordained to the subdiaconate on 15 March 1931. He was then ordained to the priesthood on 12 March 1932 by the Archbishop of Paderborn, Kaspar Klein, and from 1932 to 1934 had his first appointment as priest in Effeln, near Lippstadt, and in Dortmund-Eving. In 1934, he was appointed as rector of the German national parish of St. Boniface in Paris. World War II A few days before the outbreak of World War II on 1 September 1939, he returned to Germany, where he officiated as a priest in Dortmund-Bodelschwingh and in Klein-Wanzleben in central Germany. On 13 August 1940, he was named as priest for Germans residing in Paris during Nazi Germany's occupation of France, and returned in October 1940 to Paris. In 1941, he started to work as a chaplain in the Fresnes Prison, La Santé Prison and Cherche-Midi Prison in Paris. He was also a chaplain at the execution site at the Mont Valérien during the German occupation of France in World War