The untold story of the Titanic’s Catholic priest who went down hearing confessions
Amidst all the tales of chivalry from
the Titanic disaster there is one that’s not often told.
It is that of Fr.
Thomas Byles, the Catholic priest who
gave up two spots on a lifeboat in favour of offering
spiritual aid to the other victims as they all went down
with the “unsinkable” vessel.
A
42-year-old English convert, Fr. Byles was on his way to
New York to offer the wedding Mass for his brother
William. Reports suggest that he was reciting his
breviary on the upper deck when the Titanic struck the
iceberg in the twilight hours of Sunday, April 14th,
1912.
According to witnesses, as the ship
went down the priest helped women and children get into
the lifeboats, then heard confessions, gave absolution,
and led passengers in reciting the Rosary.
Agnes McCoy, one of the survivors,
says that as the great ship sank, Fr. Byles “stood on
the deck with Catholics, Protestants and Jews kneeling
around him.”
“Father Byles was saying the rosary
and praying for the repose of the souls of those about
to perish,” she told the New York
Telegram on April 22,
1912, according
to the
website devoted to his memory, FatherByles.com.
In the words of the priest’s
friend Fr. Patrick McKenna, “He twice refused the offer
of a place in a boat, saying his duty was to stay on the
ship while one soul wanted his ministrations.”
Nearly two weeks after the disaster, The Church
Progress in St. Louis,
Missouri wrote this moving
tribute to the heroic
priest:
In almost every line that has been
written, and in every sentence that has been spoken,
there stands boldly out above every other expression a
picture of sublime heroism that will be copied into the
pages of history. And well it may, for it is deserving
of that honor.
But when it is, mention should be
made of one whom pens and tongues have almost forgotten
in their accounts of this awful sea tragedy. Among those
who safely reached the land again no one seems to have
been aware of his presence on the ship, but we may hope
that many who meet him in a blissful eternity will
praise God that Father Thomas Byles was there to
administer absolution unto them.
From LifeSite News by Patrick B. Crane
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