Rupert Mayer manner of death natural causes
Protest against the Nazis
In January 1933, when Adolf Hitler became Chancellor of Germany, he began to close church-affiliated schools and started a campaign to discredit the religious orders in Germany.  Mayer spoke out against this persecution from the pulpit of St. Michael's in downtown Munich and because he was a powerful influence in the city, the Nazis could not tolerate such a force to oppose them.  On 16 May 1937, the Gestapo ordered Mayer to stop speaking in public which he obeyed, but he continued to preach in church.Mayer spoke out against anti-Catholic baiting campaigns and fought against Nazi church policy. Since he believed that a Catholic could not be a National Socialist, conflict inevitably arose between him and the Nazis. He preached that Man must obey God more than men. His protests against the Nazis landed him several times in Landsberg prison. Mayer resolutely spoke out against the Nazi régime's evil in his lectures and sermons. On 5 June 1937, he was arrested and found himself in "protective custody" in Stadelheim Prison for six weeks. When he became the target of defamatory attacks on the part of the Nazis, his Jesuit superiors allowed him to return to the pulpit to defend himself against slanders that the Nazis made during his silence. He was re-arrested and served a sentence of five months.
Mayer was arrested again 3 November 1939 and sent to Sachsenhausen concentration camp under the Kanzelparagraphen, a series of 19th-century laws that forbade the clergy to make political statements. He was released from there on the condition of a broad ban on preaching. The sixty-three-year old priest developed heart problems, From late 1944, he was interned in Ettal Monastery, mainly because the Nazis were afraid that he would die in the concentration camp, and thus become a martyr. He remained there until liberated by the US forces in May 1945.A United States officer returned him to Munich, where he resumed his duties at St. Michael's Church. Mayer died on his feet on 1 November 1945 of a stroke, while he was celebrating 8:00 AM Mass, on the feast of All Saints' Day in St. Michael's in Munich.  Accompanied by thousands of mourners, Mayer was first buried at the Jesuitenfriedhof in Pullach. Due to the steady stream of pilgrims, his remains were moved to Munich in 1948 and were reburied in the Unterkirche of the Bürgersaalkirche.Veneration
Since his death in 1945, Mayer's followers called for his beatification. In 1950, Cardinal Michael von Faulhaber opened the information process in the Archdiocese of Munich and Freising regarding the call to sanctity and virtues. In 1951, Jesuit provincial Otto Faller completed and formally forwarded the beatification information to Rome.
In 1956, Pope Pius XII, who had personally known Rupert Mayer during his time as nuncio in Munich, awarded him the title Servant of God. Under Pope John XXIII, the beatification process was initiated, the results of which were formally accepted by Pope Paul VI in 1971. Under Pope John Paul II, the decree of 'heroic virtue' was issued in 1983. Mayer was beatified by Pope John Paul II on 3 May 1987 in Munich. His feast day is 3 November.
The chapel of the Fordham University Lincoln Center Campus is named in honor of Rupert Mayer S.J.
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