Kerryman Msgr Hugh O’Flaherty – often described as the Vatican’s Scarlet Pimpernel – ran an elaborate network of ‘safe houses’ in Rome during the Nazi occupation of the Eternal City.
Following the end of World War II, he was created a Commander of the British Empire and awarded the US Congressional Medal of Freedom for his efforts which are estimated to have saved thousands from the horrors of the Nazi death camps.
Msgr O’Flaherty, aided by a secretive network, hid people in religious houses scattered across the city of Rome and further afield in the hills around the city.
Now, Taoiseach Enda Kenny as well as Apostolic Nuncio to Ireland Archbishop Charles Brown and Britain’s Ambassador to Ireland Dominick Chilcott will attend a special commemorative weekend in the priest’s native Kerry next month.
Organisers of the 5th Annual Hugh O’Flaherty Memorial Weekend hope that the presence of the Taoiseach will highlight the lack of official recognition given in his homeland to the heroic priest.
The weekend is organised each year to raise awareness for the humanitarian deeds of Msgr O’Flaherty and his colleagues in the Rome ‘escape line’, which directly saved over 6,500 prisoners of war, Jews and Italian anti-Nazis from arrest or re-capture and almost certain death, during the German occupation of Rome.
The organising committee, some of whom were in Rome recently with 60 others from Kerry to retrace the footsteps of Msgr O’Flaherty, are fundraising to build a permanent memorial.
It will depict the 6’ 3” priest striding along a replica of St Peter’s Square which they hope will be a “place of inspiration and contemplation for generations to come.”
The 50th anniversary of the cleric’s death occurs next year and it is hoped to have the memorial unveiled by next November.
During the occupation, Msgr O’Flaherty – who was an official in the Holy Office – became a master of disguises evading capture by the Nazis on several occasions when he left the confines of Vatican City to check on the clandestine operation.
Due to ill-health, he retired to Kerry in 1960 and died just three years later on October 30, 1963. His death was mounred throughout the world including a front page tribute in The New York Times.