Hugh O’Flaherty – the “Scarlet Pimpernel” of the Vatican
The Scarlet Pimpernel rescues aristocrats from the maw of the French Revolution and smuggles them to safety. This mysterious figure, identified only by the scarlet pimpernel flower that he carries, is the protagonist of a 1905 West End musical. He is elusive, but compassionate, seen by many as a forerunner to Zorro and Superman.
In this essay, I will tell the story of the real life “Scarlet Pimpernel”, Hugh O’Flaherty. Bequeathed with the nickname after the Second World War, O’Flaherty would save thousands from the clutches of the Nazi war machine. A Catholic priest from rural Cork, O’Flaherty would lead an extraordinary life, and he has not been forgotten (in Killarney, you can buy an ale named in his honour). Let’s find out about him.
Born in Kiskeam in north Cork in 1898 to Irish Republican parents, Hugh O’Flaherty and his family moved to Killarney when he was a child, where his father was a steward at a local golf club. An intelligent young man, he was admitted to Mungret College in Limerick in 1918, where he trained to become a priest. An excellent boxer and hurling player, he was sent to Rome to study, where he would be ordained as a minister.
A man motivated by social justice and his disdain of oppression, O’Flaherty was posted to Egypt and Haiti by the Vatican, receiving government acclaim from the latter for his famine relief work. By 1938, he had returned to Rome, working as the Secretary of State for the Holy Office.
His sporting acumen gave him access to Roman high society; he was one of the best amateur golfers in Italy, spending his free time playing with Count Ciano, Mussolini’s son-in-law, and Alfonso XIII, the former King of Spain. His golfing escapades would soon have to be abandoned, however - the fog of war had descended on Europe, and it would impact Rome directly.
In June 1940, Italy joined the Second World War on the side of the Axis Powers. Following Germany’s occupation of much of central and western Europe, Mussolini believed that a quick land grab was now feasible. The Italians conquered parts of Yugoslavia and Greece, but their failure to quell resistance movements in those territories – coupled with food shortages at home – eroded public trust in its fascist government.
By 1943, Mussolini’s regime had fallen and most of Italy, including Rome, was subsequently occupied by the Germans. Italy’s Jews, previously not subjected to major discrimination, now faced deportation to Nazi concentration camps.
An Irish nationalist, like his parents, O’Flaherty was initially indifferent to reports of Nazi atrocities, dismissing them as British propaganda. However, he would change his mind when desperate members of Rome’s Jewish community, residents in the city for over 2,000 years, came to St. Peter’s Basilica, pleading for help.
Unwilling to wait for permission from his superiors, O’Flaherty used his extensive network of contacts to recruit sympathetic priests and socialists. He would issue false Vatican papers to Jews and escaped prisoners of war, sheltering them in St. Peter’s and Vatican convents. He was even assisted by Delia Murphy – then a famous singer of Irish ballads – who was married to Ireland’s ambassador to the Holy See.
By September, the Nazis had completed their annexation of Rome. Unable to invade the Vatican due to its neutral status, they positioned soldiers around its perimeter to prevent refugees from entering. O’Flaherty disguised himself as a beggar, a postman and on one occasion, even a Nazi to administer aid to Jews living outside. His altruism was extremely risky – the head of the Gestapo in the city, Herbert Kappler, ordered his men to murder him if he was captured.
Nevertheless, many clergy members and laypeople risked their own lives to help. The Maltese Augustinian Father, Egidio Galea, hid Jews in his living quarters, while another Malta native, Chetta Chevalier, evaded detection by Nazi soldiers to look after children in her small apartment. Moreover, the Irish Department of Foreign Affairs provided diplomatic protection to Jews to hold religious services in a small basilica, unbeknownst to Kappler. On one occasion, four Swiss guards even beat up two Gestapo agents who were attempting to assassinate O’Flaherty.
Additionally, during this period, British and Americans forces, fresh from defeating the Germans in North Africa, were advancing through the Italian peninsula. They met fierce resistance from the Nazis, but possessed the manpower to push them northwards, reaching Rome by June 1944. The Italians, who had switched sides and joined the Allies, had liberated their capital city.
At this point, O’Flaherty and his colleagues were caring for about 6,500 people, all of whom would have been killed had they been found by the Gestapo. Almost 90% of Rome’s Jews would survive the war; a high figure for a Nazi-occupied city. After Rome’s liberation, O’Flaherty pressured Allied tribunals to treat Nazi war criminals humanely and helped Jewish survivors to settle in Palestine.
He was also forgiving of Kappler. Found guilty of massacring anti-fascists and deporting Jews to concentration camps, Kappler was sentenced to life imprisonment in an Italian jail after the war. O’Flaherty visited him regularly, even converting him to Catholicism. For the rest of his life, O’Flaherty would hold various roles in the Vatican, but refused accolades rewarded to him by the United States and the Holy See. He died in 1963 and is buried in the grounds of the Daniel O’Connell Memorial Church in Cahersiveen.
I have told the story of the “Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican”; a priest driven by morality, who would even be able to forgive the man who wanted to kill him. His story demonstrates that conviction and courage can make someone a hero. As a young boy, I imagined that superheroes wore capes, climbed walls and emitted spider webs from their hands, but this is not necessarily the case. Goodness and integrity can take you a long way – if you’re lucky, you may even have a beer named after you.
