The Vatican Pimpernel

by Brian Fleming

  The Rector he refers to is Monsignor Torquato Dini who was to prove a very valuable friend and mentor to the young Irishman over the next decade or so. He had obviously seen great potential in O’Flaherty and, as we can see from the letter, promoted him to work in the College as soon as he qualified and encouraged him to complete his further studies. During the next few years, O’Flaherty secured three Doctorates – in Divinity, Philosophy and Canon Law – and was promoted to the rank of Monsignor. Such a promotion so early in his career (he was, after all, still in his early thirties) underlines the high regard in which he was held in the Vatican.

  Of course the Bishop in Cape Town, Dr O’Reilly, was anxious to secure the services of the priest his diocese had sponsored. In December of 1926 O’Flaherty reports back to his parents:

  The Rector told me he had a great struggle with the Bishop and who would blame the poor man; he has only thirty-three priests for such a big place.4

  The following year he wrote directly to the Bishop confirming that he was available:

  Last June I was ready to leave and had my work rushed in order to prepare for my journey to the Cape but the Cardinal Prefect told me I was to stay longer and he intended to write and let you know. Monsignor Dini also told me it was necessary to stay a little longer and when I said you needed priests he replied that he would compensate my loss by giving you a place for another student next year.5

  This sort of negotiation went on for a number of years. Monsignor Dini was in the strategic position of being able to assign places in the College for young students to various dioceses across the world. O’Flaherty reported back to his mother in May 1928 that although places were scarce the Bishop of Cape Town had met with some success.

  Now he had got four free places and I shall very soon tell him that he would not have one only for Monsignor Dini and yours truly. But he will not be content. Give a man a flowerbed and he will want your backyard.6

  As we have seen, living in Italy at that time was very interesting from a political point of view. O’Flaherty wrote back to his sister in June 1927 prompting her to tell her husband Chris Sheehan, who was a shopkeeper, about the latest regulations governing the retail trade and other matters in Rome.

  How is Chris? Give him my very best wishes. He would laugh if he was in Italy at present. They are making all kinds of laws. Yesterday there was published a list of shopkeepers who were selling inferior goods and who were defrauding the public. They must now close. Besides the latest law makes people walk in the right hand side … added to this we have the unmarried tax and a tax for those married people who have no children. Il Duce is doing well.7

  The Monsignor had a lifelong interest in the latest gadgetry and by the summer of 1927 had secured the use of a typewriter and was also purchasing a machine from America for showing moving pictures. In a letter to his mother he reports:

  I get a number of letters but have very little time to answer them and besides I hate writing letters for when I have written the letters for the College I am tired and cannot face my own. For the future I will answer my letters only every Sunday so that will save time during the week. However, I must not complain for the typewriter is handy and I can run off a letter in less than five minutes. Please do not say that if that is all the time it takes that you would expect one oftener for yours require more time.8

  It is clear that he played golf at every opportunity though it was an expensive game in the Italy of that time.

  It is a fine game but my pocket cannot play it so I must write on my clubs ‘taboo’. Some time ago the Japanese Ambassador, before leaving for Japan, invited me to play with him and I was in good form. I astonished a good many there with the length of my drive; they all wondered why a priest should play so well for in this country they think a priest should live, eat, pray, sleep and die in the church and he is good for nothing else … The links are far from the City and besides to be a member one must know how to rob a bank and keep what is robbed.9

  He also kept fit by playing handball and wrote home in July 1928 asking that his brother-in-law Chris would mail him two good handballs. ‘Two is enough or otherwise I would have to pay a heavy tax.’10

  Monsignor Dini and O’Flaherty looked after the wishes of the Bishop of Cape Town so well that the young Irishman continued to work in the Propaganda College for a number of years. However, a cloud appeared on the horizon in 1933. He wrote to his sister Bride in November of that year:

  I had a word privately that Monsignor Dini is going to Palestine as Apostolic Delegate; he will be made an Archbishop and will go there some time after Christmas; what is going to happen to your beloved brother is not yet known.11

  He need not have worried; his mentor was looking after his interests and a couple of weeks later he was advised that he would be going to Palestine as Secretary to the Apostolic Delegate.

  It is not surprising that Dini took Monsignor O’Flaherty with him as his Secretary, having earlier identified him as a young man of significant promise. Not long into the mission, however, Dini died suddenly and O’Flaherty had to step into the breach temporarily as Chargé d’Affaires. He carried out his duties to great effect and as a result was appointed, in 1934, as Secretary to the Apostolic Delegate to the Republics of Haiti and San Domingo. O’Flaherty spent just a year in this position. However, he was obviously successful in this role because, on his departure, he was decorated by the Presidents of each of the Republics for his work in relation to famine relief and helping to settle a border dispute. In 1936, he was called back to Rome and then sent to Czechoslovakia. He spent two years there before being summoned again to Rome and given a new appointment in the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office.

  O’Flaherty spent the next quarter of a century working in that Office. It was never made clear what his role had been in Czechoslovakia nor indeed did he talk about it himself. Obviously, it had been a fairly sensitive mission and the fact that it was assigned to him is a clear indication of the high regard in which he was held by his superiors. When he joined it, the Head of the Holy Office was Monsignor Alfredo Ottaviani who was then in the early stages of a distinguished career as a powerful force within the Vatican. These two men had completely different personalities: one outgoing, gregarious and ebullient, and the other austere, careful and extremely conservative. Notwithstanding this, a lifelong friendship developed between them, and there is no doubt that the support of Ottaviani was helpful to O’Flaherty in subsequent years when his unofficial activities came to the attention of the Church authorities.

  During this time, O’Flaherty also began to develop a wide range of contacts among Roman society generally. Many of these he would have got to know when he became an active member of the Rome Golf Club. It seems there was a regulation at that time which prohibited priests in the Diocese of Rome from playing golf but this did not seem to bother either O’Flaherty or his immediate superior Ottaviani. Among the many people he got to know then were some members of the old Roman noble families who proved to be of great assistance to him later in his work. Vittoria, the Duchess of Sermoneta, recalls:

  I first met him at the Golf Club before the war, where he played a tip top game that I used to admire from a distance – it inspired awe in a rabbit like myself. At that time I did not know his name. When I heard in ’41 that John Fox-Strangways, son of my dear friends the Ilchesters, was a prisoner-of-war and lying with a broken leg at a military hospital of Caserta, I wished to send him some books and a letter, and was told the best way would be to entrust the parcel to Monsignor O’Flaherty who lived in the Vatican. When he came to my house to fetch it I was surprised to discover he was the golfing priest I had so often seen. He then played golf no longer, for his time was fully engaged doing good service for all the unfortunates of any nationality that needed help …12

  When the diplomats of the Allied powers moved into the Hospice of Santa Marta, O’Flaherty was living in the nearby German College. During most of his life in Rome, O’Flaherty lived in this C
ollege and he developed a lifelong admiration for the German people and made valiant efforts to conquer their language. Notwithstanding his expertise in Italian, French and Spanish, he always found the German language difficult.

  The onset of the war inevitably created huge problems of refugees – homeless, displaced and missing persons – and the Holy Office was assigned by the Pope the duty of dealing with all of those issues. This resulted in a new line of work for O’Flaherty. Within a year or so of Italy joining the War, there were tens of thousands of Allied prisoners of war in camps throughout the north of the country. The Pope asked the Papal Nuncio to Italy, Monsignor Bergoncini Duca, to visit these camps to check on the welfare of the prisoners. As Duca had no English, O’Flaherty was asked to go along with him to act as his secretary and interpreter.

  They started the work at Easter 1941. The Nuncio took a fairly leisurely approach to this task, visiting one camp per day. However, O’Flaherty approached the role with his usual energy. He regularly hopped on a train and travelled back to Rome, at night-time, with up-to-date lists of names of those whom he had tracked down, to be broadcast promptly by Vatican radio. A New Zealander, Fr Owen Sneddon, worked there and was a friend of O’Flaherty’s. While the scripts of his broadcast were prepared by the authorities, Sneddon regularly added in pieces of information which were of huge importance to next of kin at the request of the Irishman. Hugh would then make the train journey back and rejoin the Nuncio in time for the visit to the next camp the following morning. In this way, he could ensure that information would reach the next of kin as quickly as possible. He also cut through red tape to ensure that Red Cross parcels to prisoners were delivered as quickly as possible and he distributed thousands of books around the camps, including a prayer book that he compiled together with another Irish priest, Monsignor Thomas Ryan. O’Flaherty also campaigned successfully to have the number of doctors and Protestant chaplains in prisoner-of-war camps in the south of Italy increased to appropriate levels. His blithe disregard for regulations and red tape in carrying out these duties eventually caused problems. Pressure was brought to bear by the Fascist authorities in late 1942 and as a result he was asked by Vatican authorities to resign from his position with Monsignor Duca and he did so. However, before he left he lodged very effective complaints about the manner in which two Camp Commanders were treating the prisoners. As a result, these Commanders, at Modena and Piacenza, were relieved of their duties. We now know that in December 1942 the Italian censors had discovered a letter from a British prisoner of war to his home which said ‘The Monsignor had told [them] that the war was going well.’ Most likely this was the official reason given to the Vatican with the request that his appointment be terminated but:

  There is little doubt, however, that the real reason was the importunity with which Monsignor O’Flaherty championed the cause of all Allied Prisoners of War, persecuted Jews, anti-Fascists and refugees and thus disturbed the Italian Fascists’ conscience and policy towards these unfortunate people.13

  However, a couple of months later, he made an informal visit with a Monsignor Riberi to a prisoner-of-war camp for Australian and South African prisoners at Tuturano near Brindisi. After the visit, the local Fascist party reported to the authorities in Rome that the visit had raised the morale of the prisoners and lowered that of their guards.

  Others had begun to notice him also. Michael MacWhite had been appointed in 1938 as the first Irish Envoy Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary to the Italian Government. He had been one of the original members of the Department of External Affairs, along with Joseph Walshe, after independence. On 19 November 1942 he wrote to Walshe at the Department of External Affairs in Dublin:

  I have heard that Monsignor O’Flaherty came back from Ireland like a travelling postman … how he succeeded in obtaining a Vatican Passport for travelling to Ireland is a mystery to me as I doubt he had any official mission. Kiernan gave him a diplomatic visa. In view of his abuse of the privileges I don’t think it advisable that he should get one again. After his return here, he was reprimanded by Montini for something or other and I gather the Questura has him now under observation. It will not surprise me if he finds himself in a concentration camp one of these days. A period there might develop in him a sense of proportion and responsibility.14

  It is hard to understand the quite strong sentiments expressed in the report from the Irish Legation. It seems to imply that the Monsignor’s activities involved more than just cutting through red tape and bureaucratic difficulties when it suggests that the Questura (police headquarters) had him under observation. At the same time, the journey home to Ireland, presumably a fairly innocuous event, hardly seems to merit such strong condemnation. There is no evidence that there was any personal antagonism between the Monsignor and the diplomat. At the same time, MacWhite was a very acute and well-informed observer of the scene in Rome. Very little is known about O’Flaherty’s unofficial activities on behalf of prisoners of war at this stage. MacWhite’s report gives a strong reason to believe that the Monsignor had commenced this work as early as the autumn of 1942.

  There seems to have been some tension between MacWhite and his counterpart at the Holy See, Kiernan. In December 1943, in a report back to the Department, Kiernan notes:

  MacWhite got very huffy with me and said I have no jurisdiction in Rome outside the strict Vatican territory and so on. But I do everything to avoid hurting his sensitivity. He wants me to report to him every time an Irish priest or religious comes to me about some ‘protection’ difficulty.15

  Kiernan was not the sort of man who would hand over any of his responsibilities to another. However, MacWhite may have had reason to be careful in his dealings with Kiernan. As early as December 1942 a clear divergence emerges as to how things ought to be handled. MacWhite drafted a letter to Kiernan which he dated 10 December. As he did not sign it, it is reasonable to presume it was never sent. At the same time it is a clear reflection of his concerns:

  I have your letters of the 22nd and 23rd referring to certain action taken by you in connection with the protection of Irish property in Italy without first consulting me and note your preference for Departmental lessons in official correctness. You have, of course, your own way of doing things.

  Five weeks ago I had a cable from the Department instructing me to remain in Rome at all costs for the protection of our citizens and in case I had to leave I was to ask the Holy See to arrange for their protection ‘through Kiernan or otherwise’. Instead of arranging to have this done through the Nuncio, as I might have done in conformity with official correctness, I called you in for consultation and asked you to undertake it. This is my way of doing things.

  When at your legation some weeks ago you were very insistent in urging me to fake a passport to permit a British prisoner of war to enter the Vatican, I suppose this is also a matter in regard to which you would prefer the Department to be the judge of your ‘official correctness’.16

  Early 1943 saw the turning point in the War, with the Russian success at Stalingrad and the Allied victory in North Africa. The Italian Fascist authorities began to tighten their grip on Rome as a result. As part of this exercise, they began a process of searching out leading figures in the city who they considered might be a focus of dissent in the months ahead. Notable among these were Jews and prominent Italian anti-Fascists who might provide leadership to the Romans. By this stage also, O’Flaherty’s reputation as the person to approach if one needed assistance had become well established. Many people whose situation was now precarious had already got to know him at pre-war social events. As one of his closest colleagues described the situation some time later:

  He has been at the Vatican since 1922, and seems to know everyone in Rome. Everybody knows Monsignor O’Flaherty – and, what is more important, they all adore him.17

  Initially the Monsignor’s role was merely to make suggestions to friends and acquaintances who felt that they might be in danger of arrest. He very quickly
became a rallying point for those who were under threat, most particularly Jews and Anti-Fascists. He referred them to safe locations, usually monasteries or convents, where he felt they might find sanctuary. However, as fears grew and more and more raids became commonplace, his role developed a more active dimension. He began to hide some of those who approached him in his own place of residence which, ironically, was the German College in Rome. This College had, over the years, been home to many German students and was under the care of a German Rector assisted by a staff of Germanborn nuns. In addition, it was home to a number of Vatican officials, including O’Flaherty. Although it was in the shadow of St Peter’s, the College was not in the Vatican itself but had the status of an extra-territorial property. Quite soon it became home to some unofficial guests. One of the early arrivals was Princess Nini Pallavicini, a young widow and a member of one of the ancient noble Roman families. Many of these families were quite public in their opposition to the position of the Fascist Government on the War. The authorities were aware that an illegal radio was operating in a particular area of Rome and eventually traced it to Palazzo Rospigliosi-Pallavicini where the Princess lived. As a result, they launched a raid and Princess Nini narrowly escaped by jumping out a window. She immediately sought O’Flaherty’s help. He moved her into the German College and, although a very substantial cash reward was posted for information leading to her arrest, she was never betrayed. She spent the rest of the War assisting him in his work, particularly in providing false identity documents for escapees. Regular supplies of such papers were issued to people who came to O’Flaherty for help. It has even been suggested that printing equipment belonging to the Vatican was used in this exercise.

  Others whom he helped at that time were three soldiers from New Zealand who arrived at St Peter’s seeking sanctuary. They had become acquainted with O’Flaherty on his visits to the prisoner-of-war camps and asked to meet him when they arrived in Rome. He immediately arranged sanctuary for all three within the Vatican.