This phrase, “hallowed be thy name,” teaches us to pray for the worthy ideal, for the unassailable, holy, venerated standard. Unless they have something of supreme value, something at the center of their being which they can venerate, human beings gradually deteriorate. Human nature is so constituted that it must have something holy that it can worship, otherwise it becomes cramped and distorted, and instead of a holy object of veneration something else will take its place. I ought to know for I have just emerged from a murderous dialogue with such a self-appointed object of veneration. These substitute values are far more autocratic and demanding than the living God himself. They have no idea of courtesy or of waiting for their turn…. All they know is demand, compulsion, force, threats, and liquidation. And woe to anyone who does not conform.

Alfred Delp, a Jesuit priest, was executed on February 2, 1945 for his refusal to condone the Third Reich.