Any one see the movie "The Scarlet and the Black"?
Great movie that shows the relationship of the Nazis to that of the Catholic Church. It stars Gregory Peck and tells the story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty.
Wikipedia offers some on Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugh_O'Flaherty
Quote:
In the early years of
World War II, O'Flaherty toured
prisoner of war camps in Italy and tried to find out prisoners who had been reported
missing in action. If he found them alive, he tried to reassure their families through
Vatican Radio.
When Italy changed sides in 1943, thousands of British POWs were released. Some of them, remembering visits of O'Flaherty, reached Rome and asked him for help. Others went to the Irish legation, the only English-speaking one to remain open in Rome during the war.
Delia Murphy, who was the wife of the ambassador and in her day a well-known ballad singer, was one of those who helped O'Flaherty.
[1]
O'Flaherty did not wait for permission from his superiors. He recruited the help of other priests, two agents working for
Free French and even communists and a Swiss count. One of his aides was British Colonel
Sam Derry. He also kept contact with Sir
D'Arcy Osborne, British Ambassador to the Vatican. O'Flaherty and his allies concealed 4000 escapees - Allied soldiers and Jews - in flats, farms and convents. One of the hideouts was beside the local SS headquarters. O'Flaherty coordinated all this and when he was visiting outside Vatican, he wore various disguises.
The German occupiers of Rome tried to stop him and eventually they found out that the leader of the network was a priest. SS attempts to assassinate him failed. They found out his identity but they could not arrest him inside the Vatican. When the German ambassador revealed this to O'Flaherty, he began to meet his contacts on the stairs of the
St. Peter's Basilica.
Together with Msgr. O'Flaherty worked in secret several others including priests, nuns and lay people, who even hid refugees in their own private homes around Rome. Among these we find Augustinian Maltese Fathers, Egidio Galea (the last surviving Friar who died on January 3, 2005 aged 86), Aurelio Borg, Ugolino Gatt and Brother Robert. Another person who contributed significantly to this operation was the
Malta-born Chetta Chevalier, who hid some refugees in her house with her children [
citation needed]. Jewish religious services were conducted in the
Basilica di San Clemente under a painting of
Tobias. The Basilica was under Irish
diplomatic protection.
[2]
When the Allies arrived in Rome in June 1944, 3925 of the escapees were still alive. O'Flaherty demanded that German prisoners should be treated properly as well. He took a plane to
South Africa to meet Italian POWs and to
Jerusalem to visit Jewish refugees. He even visited the imprisoned SS chief of Rome, Colonel
Herbert Kappler, in prison - month after month - and in 1959 Kappler converted to Catholicism
[3]
Of the 9,700 Jews in Rome, 1,007 were shipped to Auschwitz. The rest were hidden, 5,000 of them by the official Church--3,000 in
Castel Gandolfo, 200 or 400 (estimates vary) as "members" of the
Palatine Guard and some 1,500 in monasteries, convents and colleges. The remaining 3,700 were hidden in private homes.