The series was published to mark the 145th anniversary of Brandsma’s birth on 23 February 2026. Many people know him primarily as the priest who died in 1942 in the Dachau concentration camp after opposing Nazi propaganda. In the podcast, Inigo Bocken, a researcher at the Titus Brandsma Institute, shows that this image tells only part of the story. Brandsma was also a thinker who engaged deeply with the social and spiritual questions of his time.
Contemplation in action
The first episode, Contemplation in Action, centres on Brandsma’s striking role in society. He moved among journalists, teachers, administrators, and within Catholic associations. His ideal was “contemplation in action”: to stand in the midst of the world without losing one’s spiritual source. The episode also explores why he was regarded as dangerous by the Nazi regime.
'A crisis of the concept of God'
“We are living in a crisis of the concept of God,” Brandsma said in his 1932 dies address. In the second episode, Inigo Bocken explores this address further. Brandsma argues that the deepest crisis of his time was not political or economic, but spiritual in nature. He distinguishes between ‘images of God’ and the ‘concept of God’, showing how mysticism can guide responsibility in the world. His mystical language proves not to be an escape from reality, but rather a way of understanding it more deeply.
Titus Brandsma and the truth
The third episode focuses on Brandsma’s role as a journalist. For him, the newspaper was not a tool of propaganda, but a place of encounter between reader and writer. The episode shows how he resisted the Nazification of the press and what “living in truth” means in an age of algorithms and information bubbles. For Brandsma, truth is more than correct information: it is a way of life. In this way, the series demonstrates how his thought remains relevant today.
The podcast Titus Brandsma Today is an initiative of Katholiek Nieuwsblad and the Thomas More Foundation. The series was made possible thanks to the Simone Weil Award, which was awarded by the foundation to Bocken for his biography Denker voor Gods aangezicht ('Thinker Before the Face of God').
Listen
The podcast (in Dutch) is now available to listen to via various channels:
