Hugh O'Flaherty

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Memorial to O'Flaherty in Killarney, Ireland, with his saying: God has no country

Hugh O'Flaherty (born February 28, 1898 in Lisrobin , County Cork , Ireland , † October 30, 1963 in Cahersiveen , County Kerry , Ireland ) was an Irish priest of the Roman Catholic Church and during the Second World War resistance fighter in the Wehrmacht occupied Italy. He hid together with helpers about 6,500 Jews and escaped from captivity soldiers of the Allies in monasteries, religious buildings and in private homes.

Life

Hugh O'Flaherty was born in Lisrobin, County Cork, Ireland in 1898 . He first studied theology at the seminary in Killarney . In 1922 he went to Rome , where he finished his studies. In 1925, O'Flaherty was ordained a priest . He worked as a diplomat for the Holy See and toured Egypt , Haiti , Santo Domingo and Czechoslovakia . In 1934 he was appointed monsignor and then a member of the Holy Office .

In his spare time, O'Flaherty was a passionate golf player and played regularly with Count Ciano , Italy's then Foreign Minister and son-in-law of Benito Mussolini . After the war began, O'Flaherty was regularly engaged in pastoral work in prisoner-of-war camps and looked for missing people among the prisoners. Once he found them, he informed the relatives in the countries concerned via Vatican Radio .

After Mussolini's fall in 1943, the imprisoned Allied soldiers were released, but when the Wehrmacht marched into Italy, they were at the mercy of being captured again. The Italian Jews were also threatened. Many war refugees turned to O'Flaherty, who then began to set up a secret organization that hid the refugees in monasteries , church buildings and private homes, thereby saving their lives. At that time he was living at the German priestly college Campo Santo Teutonico , from where he coordinated his aid organizations in 1943/44. Among the closest aides were British Colonel Sam Derry , Delia Murphy , the wife of Irish Ambassador Thomas J. Kiernan and Chetta Chevalier from Malta, who also hid refugees in her own home. Other employees were Aurelio Borg , Ugolino Gatt and Egidio Galea . An important contact person was the British diplomat Sir D'Arcy Osborne .

The most dangerous and powerful opponent of O'Flaherty was Obersturmbannführer Herbert Kappler , the commander of the Security Police and the SD in Rome. The latter had realized that a secret aid organization had been set up by O'Flaherty and was now trying to have him arrested and murdered. O'Flaherty managed to leave Vatican City undetected and to go to hiding places or secret meetings. Among other things, he disguised himself as a beggar, postman, religious sister and even as a member of the occupying power. Finally, there was an assassination attempt on O'Flaherty in the Vatican, but it failed. When the Allies liberated Rome in June 1944, Herbert Kappler was captured and sentenced to life imprisonment. O'Flaherty visited Kappler in prison every month. In 1959 Kappler converted to Catholicism and was baptized by O'Flaherty .

After the war, Hugh O'Flaherty received numerous honors for his services. He was awarded the Medal of Freedom of the United States awarded and Commander of the Order of the British Empire appointed. O'Flaherty had refused a state pension from the Italian state. In 1960 he suffered a heart attack during a Holy Mass and was taken to Ireland. There he lived with his sister Bride Sheehan in Cahersiveen until his death in 1963.

Afterlife

In 1983 the resistance struggle of O'Flaherty and his group was filmed under the title In the Tropic of the Cross with Gregory Peck in the role of Monsignor. O'Flaherty's grave is still visited by numerous followers today. There is a memorial in memory of the Irish priest in Killarney National Park . A Hugh O'Flaherty Memorial Society was also established. His life story is on the curriculum in Irish schools. A beatification does not seem impossible.

Publications

  • with Jan Olav Smit: In our Father's house. Saint Peter's and the Vatican , Vatican Polyglot Press, Rome 1939.
  • with Jan Olav Smit: O Roma felix: Practical guide for walks in Rome , Verdesi, Rome 1959.

literature

  • Arne Molfenter, Rüdiger Strempel: Over the white line. How a priest saved over 6,000 people from the Gestapo . Dumont, Cologne 2014, ISBN 978-3-8321-9760-5 .
  • Brian Fleming: The Vatican Pimpernel. The Wartime Exploits of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty . Collins Press, Cork 2008, ISBN 978-1-905172-57-3 .
  • Joseph Peter Gallagher: Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican. On the work of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty . Souvenir Press, London 1967.
  • Daniel M. Madden: Operation escape. The adventure of Father O'Flaherty . Hawthorn Books, New York 1962.

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Stefan Heid, Johann Ickx: The Campo Santo Teutonico, the German priestly college and the arch brotherhood to the Sorrowful Mother of God during the Second World War . In: Michael Matheus, Stefan Heid (Ed.): Places of Refuge and Personal Networks. The Campo Santo Teutonico and the Vatican 1933-1955 . Freiburg i. Br. 2015, ISBN 978-3-451-30930-4 , pp. 137-169 .
  2. ↑ Paula Konersmann: About the white line . In: Catholic News Agency of September 23, 2014 (Journal)
personal data
SURNAME O'Flaherty, Hugh
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish priest and resistance fighter
DATE OF BIRTH February 28, 1898
PLACE OF BIRTH Lisrobin , County Cork
DATE OF DEATH October 30, 1963
Place of death Cahersiveen , County Kerry