Blessed János Brenner

János Brenner was born at Szombathely in Hungary in 1931 into a deeply Catholic family. He studied at the Cistercian school in Pécs and began his novitiate in 1950; when the order was suppressed he was moved to Budapest, continuing novitiate and theology in secret and making temporary vows in 1951. Unable to remain in the order, he pursued the priesthood in the seminary of his home town and, after its closure, at Győr, and was ordained on 19 June 1955. Sent as assistant priest to Rábakethely near the Austrian border, he was denounced within a year by the State Office for Church Affairs, which asked the bishop to remove him; the bishop went to the parish, spoke with him and his parish priest, and left him in place.

Late on Saturday 14 December 1957 a boy came to the presbytery asking for the anointing of an uncle. Carrying the Eucharist, the holy oil, his stole and breviary, he set out, and before he arrived he was set upon. Held from behind and blinded by the loss of his glasses, he received thirty-two stab wounds while trying to shield the Blessed Sacrament, and was finished with a blow to the head.