University of Louvain four days later, on 24 June. In February 1931, he denounced cremation, declaring, "That funeral honors should be paid to a cremated corpse is a defiance of Catholic conscience which objects to cremation...Any funeral is meaningless after destruction of the body by burning". Nazi period The Cardinal was deeply opposed to Nazi Germany, and once said, "With Germany we step many degrees downward and reach the lowest possible depths. We have a duty of conscience to combat and to strive for the defeat of these dangers...Reason and good sense both direct us towards confidence, towards resistance". In 1937, van Roey condemned Rexism as "a danger to the country and the Church" and issued a precautionary condemnation of anyone who cast a blank ballot, much to the anger of Adolf Hitler. Although some saw this as an unwarranted ecclesiastical entrance into the political sphere, the Cardinal defended himself by saying, "The hierarchic authority is perfectly entitled to pronounce on any political party or political movement in so far as that party or movement opposes religious well-being or the precepts of Christian morals", a statement which earned the support of Pope Pius XI. Cardinal van Roey intervened with the authorities to rescue Jews from the Nazis, and encouraged various institutions to aid Jewish children. One of his acts of rescue was to open a geriatric centre in which Jews were housed, at which kosher Jewish cooks would be required who could therefore be given special passes protecting them from deportation. On 24 September 1942, van Roey and Queen Elizabeth of Belgium both intervened with the German authorities in Brussels after the arrest of six leading members of the Jewish community. As a result, five were released. The sixth, Edward Rotbel, Secretary of the Belgian Jewish Community, was a Hungarian citizen, and could not be saved from deportation to Auschwitz-Birkenau. Post-war Also known as the "Iron Bishop," he excommunicated members of the Flemish National Union following World War II. He was one of the cardinal electors in the 1939 papal conclave, and later participated in the conclave of 1958, which selected Pope John XXIII. Van Roey presided over the marriage of Prince Albert and Princess Paola Margherita Consiglia Ruffo di Calabria on 2 July 1959, and of King Baudouin I and Doña Fabiola de Mora y Aragón on 15 December 1960. He protested against the abdication of King Leopold III