Hugh O'Flaherty

Uncommon card · No. 167062

Hugh Monsignor O'Flaherty (28 February 1898 – 30 October 1963) was an Irish Catholic priest, a senior official of the Roman Curia and a significant figure in the Catholic resistance to Nazism. During the Second World War, O'Flaherty was responsible for saving 6,500 Allied soldiers and Jews. His ability to evade the traps set by the German Gestapo and Sicherheitsdienst (SD) Chief Herbert Kappler earned him the nickname "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican". After the war, he was named a papal domestic prelate by Pope Pius XII and served as notary of the Holy Office. He worked alongside and closely assisted Cardinal Alfredo Ottaviani until 1960. Prior to being incapacitated by a stroke in that same year, Monsignor O'Flaherty was about to be promoted by Pope John XXIII to papal nuncio to Tanganyika. He returned to his native Ireland, where he died in 1963. Despite O'Flaherty and Delia Murphy's joint role in helping to save more than 5,000 Jewish lives through their Rome Escape Line network...

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