[1] Gross first worked in crafts requiring skilled labor before becoming a coal miner like his father while joining a range of trade union and political movements.

[2] But he soon settled on becoming a journalist before he got married while World War II prompted him to become a resistance fighter in the time of the Third Reich and for his anti-violent rhetoric and approach to opposing Adolf Hitler.

[3][4] His cause for sainthood saw it acknowledged that Gross had died in 1945 "in odium fidei" (in hatred of the faith) which allowed for Pope John Paul II to preside over the beatification for the murdered journalist on 7 October 2001 in Saint Peter's Square.

[4][2] He furthered his education in evening courses at the Volksverein für das katholische Deutschland and in 1920 gave up his job as a miner and worked for the Christian Mineworkers' Trade Union ("Gewerkverein Christlicher Bergarbeiter") in Oberhausen in a secretarial role from July 1920 until June 1921.

In January 1927 he changed jobs to become the assistant editor at the Westdeutsche Arbeiterzeitung which was the organizational organ of the Katholische Arbeitnehmer-Bewegung ("Catholic Workers' Movement" or K.A.B.)

In the beginning of 1935 the paper bore the name Kettelerwacht and was banned once and for all on 19 November 1938 but he continued to publish an underground edition to expose the lies of propaganda.

This group worked with those in Berlin about Carl Friedrich Goerdeler and took part in his personal plans for the time after Adolf Hitler was out of office should that have happened.

[1][4] The beatification process commenced on 19 January 1988 after the Congregation for the Causes of Saints issued the official "nihil obstat" to the cause and titled Gross as a Servant of God; but it would be a decade until the actual diocesan phase of investigation opened in the Essen diocese on 12 November 1996 which later closed on 12 October 1997.