Roman Catholic Cardinal. The son of a schoolteacher, Josef Beran was born in Pilsen, Bohemia, present day Czech Republic, and entering seminary there, he successively pursued his studies at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome, earning a doctorate in theology. Ordained priest on June 10, 1911, he performed pastoral work in Pilsen until 1932. Director of all Catholic schools and spiritual director of the seminary of Prague, he was appointed to the teaching staff of the Charles University in 1932 and was raised to the rank of privy chamberlain of His Holiness on June 11, 1936. Arrested by the Gestapo due to his patriotic stance following the demise of Cardinal Karel Kašpar, two days after the assassination of Reinhard Heydrich, acting Nazi ruler of Bohemia, Beran was imprisoned in Pankrác, Theresienstadt and successively at the Dachau concentration camp. Shortly after his release, Pope Pius XII appointed him archbishop of Prague and thus Primate of Czechoslovakia on November 4, 1946, which see had remained vacant since the death of Cardinal Kašpar. He received his episcopal consecration on the following December 8 from Archbishop Saverio Ritter. Prohibiting his clergy from taking an oath of loyalty to the then recently risen Communist regime of Czechoslovakia in 1948, viewing such an action as a "treason to the Christian faith", he publicly protested the seizure of Church property and infringement of religious freedom, declaring that, "the Catholic Church should enjoy the absolute freedom to which it has a right, both God given and guaranteed by the existing constitution". In June 1949, Beran was placed under house arrest, complaining of being "deprived of all personal freedom and all rights as the Archbishop". He later willingly re-entered imprisonment, this time in Mukařov and Radvanov, which went on to 1963. Impeded from exercising his episcopal ministry, upon his release he went to live in Rome, in exchange for governmental concessions to the Church. Pope Paul VI created him cardinal priest with the title of Santa Croce in Via Flaminia in the consistory of February 22, 1965. Offering his resignation to the Pope repeatedly, the Pontiff always refused it. Beran died of lung cancer at the Nepomucene College in Rome. Learning of his precarious health condition, the named Pontiff hurried to his deathbed from the Vatican but the Cardinal had died only a few minutes before he reached his bedside. Buried in the grottoes of St. Peter's Patriarchal Basilica after the Czech government refused the transportation of his body to his native country, on April 2, 1998, the Archdiocese of Prague opened his cause for beatification. His last will to be buried in Prague was materialized in 2018 after Pope Francis permitted the transfer of the late Cardinal's remains which occurred on April 20 of that year, accompanied through its journey by Cardinal Angelo Comastri.