A Man To Canonize

   Some pious head-in-the-sand types have been pushing for the late John Paul II to be declared a saint. They're busily scurrying about trying to circumvent the usual time and paperwork required, and find evidence of the de rigueur miracles supposedly performed by the nasty old man. Why don't they look to someone more deserving of their efforts? If they were willing to take their blinders off and take a closer look at reality, they would not have to set their sights any further afield than the Vatican to find the kind of man they seek.
   Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty was a Vatican priest during the second world war. He was responsible for saving more Allied lives than any other single person during the war. From a network of connections established before the war, he built a massive partisan network that rescued thousands of escaping Allied POW's and Roman Jews. If you're interested in learning more about the man, sit down with a copy of "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican", by J. P. Gallagher, or "The Vatican Lifeline", by William Simpson. You could also rent a copy of the 1983 made-for-TV movie, "The Scarlet and the Black" starring Gregory Peck as the redoubtable Monsignor.
   O'Flaherty began the war feeling no particular affinity for either side. He was a son of Ireland who had little use for the British, and once declared, :I don't think there is much to choose between Britain and Germany." Above all else, however, he was a man of principle. His involvement was forced upon him in 1942, when the occupying Germans began a crackdown on the prominent Jews of Rome, and aristocratic anti-fascists. These were people that the amateur golf-champion, socializing monsignor had shared friendship with and he could not simply stand by and see them taken away to their deaths, so he began hiding them in monasteries, in convents, and even in his own residence.
   In 1943, he widened his net of safety to include any of the Jews whom the Nazis had begun herding onto cattlecars for their horrendous last journey. He took in escaped British POW's, and acquired the partnership of Sir Francis Osborne, British Minister to the Vatican. It is likely because of this alliance that the British extended a line of credit through the Vatican bank for the monsignor, to finance his clandestine activities. In no time, the cleric and his network were giving their life-saving assistance to refugees of any nationality or creed who approached them. They had thousands of people wanted by the Nazis hidden away in nearly every catholic building in Rome, on every floor from the cellar to the attic, in every edifice from private homes to seminaries and convents.
   The work of organizing such a large operation, while admirable, is certainly not sufficient grounds to consider canonizing the man. It is rather the danger to himself that he faced, and ignored, in his determination to help, that qualifies him. Colonel Herbert Kappler, the chief of the gestapo in Rome soon identified O'Flaherty as a marked man, and began to look for a way to get past the restriction of O'Flaherty's diplomatic immunity as a member of the Vatican. He hunted the man and set traps for him at every opportunity. The stories about O'Flaherty's eluding these traps are legion. He is supposed to have disguised himself at different times as everything from a nun to a coalman in order to escape capture off Vatican grounds. Kappler's frustration at not being able to apprehend the elusive Irishman even led him to an attempt to have O'Flaherty forcibly dragged off Vatican property by a couple of Gestapo assassins. The Germans were thwarted once again when members of the Swiss guard pummeled them and sent them running.
   The man from Ireland was much more of a humanitarian than the late pontiff from Poland ever was. He risked personal danger every day in order to save the unfortunates marked for death by the Nazis. When did Karol Wojtyla ever choose to set aside his own personal comfort and safety in order to better the world for thousands of the persecuted? Occasional appearances on a balcony from whence he called for everyone to play nice count for naught. Intermittent bleating about praying for world peace were merely whispers to be shredded and blown away by the faintest breeze. They did nothing to ease the suffering of the poorest of his flock. They are the people above whom he is not supposed to place himself. He forgot that regularly, upon donning all the rich trappings of his office. O'Flaherty may have enjoyed his socializing with the elite of Rome, but it never held him back from putting his own life on the line to safeguard them in their hour of need. What is there that Wojtyla ever did to come anywhere close to the good deeds of O'Flaherty?
   Let the numskulls obsessed with canonizing the Pole continue their search for a "miracle", some pair of crutches perhaps, abandoned by an invalid who called upon the intercession of the dead man. His dying may well be the only time he can be said to have taken action to better the world. O'Flaherty, on the other hand, worked at it with a will. In fact, after the war, he is said to have been the only one who regularly visited Kappler, serving a life sentence for his war crimes. In March, 1959, O'Flaherty himself poured the waters of baptism over Kappler, bringing into the fold a soul that had truly been lost to humanity. Perhaps it is past time to inscribe his name on the roll of giants of the roman catholic church.