Josef Beran was born in Pilsen, the son of a schoolteacher, and studied at the seminary there and at the Pontifical Urbaniana University in Rome. Ordained to the priesthood on June 10, 1911, he then did pastoral work in Pilsen until 1932. Beran was made the spiritual director of the Prague seminary and a professor at Charles University in 1932, and raised to the rank of Privy Chamberlain of His Holiness on June 11, 1936. Arrested by the Gestapo on June 6, 1940, Beran was later imprisoned in Pankrác, Theresienstadt (alongside Štěpán Trochta), and the Dachau concentration camp.