The Question of Faith SECTION D ChAPTER 3 RELIgIOUS FAITh IN ACTION Giving Witness to Faith


When World War II began in 1939, Hugh O’Flaherty (1898–1963) listened to what both sides were saying. The opposing sides – the Allies and the Axis – each accused the other of doing terrible things. Wary of being misled by propaganda, O’Flaherty was unsure what to believe at first.


REMEMBER! Propaganda refers to ideas or statements that may be exaggerated or false but are spread in order to promote some cause, or to help a political leader achieve some goal.


Soon O’Flaherty began to hear shocking reports from reliable sources about what the Nazis were doing in areas they had occupied. He decided that he could not simply stand by and do nothing. He had to help their victims.


O’Flaherty was an Irish Catholic priest. A highly educated man with three doctorates (i.e. PhDs), he was fluent in French, German, Italian and Spanish. He was also an accomplished boxer and Italy’s amateur golf champion. After his ordination to the priesthood in 1925, he had joined the Vatican’s diplomatic corps. He served with distinction, first in Egypt and then in Haiti, where he had organised famine relief. After this, he spent two years in Czechoslovakia before being recalled to work in the Holy Office in Rome. He would spend the next quarter of a century there. In recognition of his efforts, the pope awarded O’Flaherty the title Monsignor.


In the early years of World War II, O’Flaherty toured all of the Allied POW (i.e. prisoner-of-war) camps in Italy. He tracked down prisoners who had been declared MIA (i.e. missing in action). Then he got word that they were alive back to their worried relatives via Vatican radio.


In September 1943, Italy surrendered to the Allies. In response, Hitler sent his elite Schutzstaffel to occupy Rome and to prevent the Allied armies from threatening his southern flank.


In the chaos following the Italian surrender, thousands of Allied POWs were allowed to go free. Many of them remembered O’Flaherty from his visits to their camps. They made their way to Rome, seeking his help. They were not


disappointed.


He secured the help of many people – including monks, nuns, communist resistance fighters and foreign diplomats. They agreed to hide the escaped POWs in convents, monasteries, flats and farm buildings.


Hugh O’Flaherty (1898–1963)


Then O’Flaherty set up an escape ‘pipeline’. He used it to smuggle Jews and Allied POWs out of Italy and across the Alps to safety in neutral Switzerland.


This work was very dangerous. Inside the Vatican, the monsignor was relatively safe because it was neutral territory. However, once he stepped outside the Vatican he was putting his life at risk. The Nazis had learnt that this Irish priest was the leader of the escape organisation and were determined to stop him


The Schutzstaffel or SS was an elite Nazi military force. Its members wore distinctive black uniforms with lightning SS insignia on their collars.


The SS began as Hitler’s personal bodyguard. However, by 1943 it had expanded into a massive combat force numbering over half a million men. Its members were fanatically loyal to Hitler. They carried out some of the worst atrocities of World War II. They set up and ran the concentration camps that murdered not only six million Jews, but also millions more opponents of the Nazi regime.


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