MAYBE YOU DIDN'T KNOW

PRIESTS OF THE TITANIC

by

Donald R. McClarey

April 15, 2012

Father Thomas Byles

One hundred years ago Father Thomas Byles was journeying to New York City aboard the RMS Titanic to say the Mass at his brother William’s wedding.

Born on February 26, 1870, he was the eldest of seven children of a Congregationalist minister. While attending Oxford, from which he graduated in 1894, he converted to Catholicism. Ordained a priest in 1902, he was assigned to be the parish priest at Saint Helen’s in Ongar, Essex in 1905. The parish was poor and had few parishioners, but Father Byles was devoted to them and labored mightily for them until 1912 when he left to answer the call of his brother to celebrate his marriage.

Father Byles did not view his trip on the Titanic as a vacation from his priestly duties. He spent Saturday April 13, hearing confessions, and on Sunday April 14, he said two masses for the second and third class passengers.

When the Titanic struck the iceberg, Father Byles was walking on the upper deck reading his breviary. He immediately sprang into action. He assisted many third class passengers up to the boat deck and onto the life boats. He twice refused to go aboard life boats himself. As the ship was sinking he said the rosary and heard confessions. Near the end he gave absolution to more than a hundred passengers trapped on the stern of the ship after all the lifeboats had been launched.

Two other Catholic priests were also aboard the Titanic, both as second class passengers.

Father Juozas Montvila 

Father Juozas Montvila was a 27 year old priest from Lithuania fleeing Tsarist oppression. He had been ministering to Ukrainian Catholics and he had been forbidden to do so any longer by the Tsarist regime that was attempting to force Eastern Rite Catholics into the Russian Orthodox Church. Father Montvila planned to be a priest for the numerous Ukrainian Catholic immigrants in the United States.

  

Father Joseph Benedikt Peruschitz

Father Joseph Benedikt Peruschitz was a 41 year old Catholic priest from Germany. He was on his way to join the faculty at Saint John’s Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota.

Like Father Byles, Fathers Montvila and Peruschitz went among the passengers, praying with all, Catholic and non-Catholic, and granting absolution. Also like Father Byles they were offered seats in the lifeboats and declined them, realizing that the place for a priest was on board the Titanic with those who were about to die.

The bodies of the three priests were never recovered. The location of their souls however, I am certain, is in Heaven. God was well served by His three priests that dark night one hundred years ago.

       THE TITANIC'S FOURTH PRIEST WHO DIDN'T DIE ON THE SHIP

              How Holy Obedience Saved a Priest's Life on Titanic

This Jesuit’s iconic photos comprise the most comprehensive collection of photographs that exist of the ill-fated ship 100 years later.

by 
JENNIFER ROCHE

Father Frank Browne

It was the find of a lifetime: While cataloging the archives of a Dublin Jesuit residence, Father Eddie O’Donnell discovered an intriguing antique steamer truck in the cellar.

The treasures inside: 42,500 of Father Frank Browne’s captioned negatives — the most comprehensive collection of Titanic photographs that exist. (I would suggest listening to this Vatican Radio interview of Father O’Donnell discussing some of the more fascinating aspects of Father Browne’s life and how his photography serves as a resource for Titanic research.) Father Browne's Titanic Album: Centenary Edition is available through Messenger Publications.

Father Browne (1880-1960) was an Irish Jesuit priest and master photographer who had a truly exceptional experience of the Titanic during its maiden voyage in April 1912. While aboard the famed liner, Father Browne took many important photographs that have provided essential information about the ship and its fate.

According to the radio interview with Father O'Donnell, critics describe Father Browne as a "master photographer with an unerring eye and the Irish equivalent of Cartier-Bresson." Recognized for their artistic quality, his photographs have been exhibited at the Centre Pompidou in Paris.

When Father O'Donnell showed the negatives to the features editor of the London Sunday Times, the editor said they were "the photographic equivalent to the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls."

Father Browne’s Jesuit training began in 1897 in the novitiate and at the Royal University of Ireland (where James Joyce was a classmate; he later referenced him as “Father Browne, the Jesuit” in Finnegans Wake). He then took courses in philosophy and theology from 1911 to 1916. An uncle gave him a ticket on the RMS Titanic as a gift, with passage from Southampton, England, to Cork, Ireland.

The ship's itinerary was from Southampton to Cherbourg, France, to Queenstown, Ireland, then on to final port of call in New York City.

During his voyage to Ireland, the priest befriended an American couple who were so impressed with the young man that they offered to pay his remaining fare and expenses to New York. Father Browne declined their generous offer, explaining that his superior would not allow it.

Not quick to give up, they suggested he send a message to inquire if he could accept. So he telegraphed his superior and received five words in reply: “GET OFF THAT SHIP — PROVINCIAL.”

So he disembarked in Ireland, and the Titanic continued on to its tragic end.

In the years that followed the tragedy, he was known to jest that this is the only time when holy obedience has been known to have saved a man’s life.

In another peculiar twist of fate — or Providence — Father Browne’s Titanic portfolio was discovered in 1985, the same year that Robert Ballard discovered the Titanic wreckage on the seabed.