Römisches Institut der Görres-Gesellschaft
A novel about Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty
Even in the recent novel by the Irish writer Joseph O'Connor "In My Father's House" (2023) about the Irish priest Hugh O'Flaherty (1898-1963), the Campo Santo Teutonico hardly appears. However, in 1943/44, O'Flaherty had just set up the largest private relief operation for those persecuted before the Nazis in Rome from the German College in the Vatican.
The author of the novel gives the advice, that biographers or scholars should not rely on his book, nor is this novel intended as a source for students studying wartime Rome or the occupation of Italy by the German Wehrmacht in 1943/44 (p. 379).
Rather, the author refers to the scholarly literature on O'Flaherty, specifically the volume "Orte der Zuflucht" (2015) published by RIGG. Now, however, one can also consult the booklet "The hero of the Campo Santo" published by Schnell& Steiner Verlag (in German, English and Italian), which has no footnotes but whose statements can all be substantiated from the files.
A word about the novel: On page 193, the Campo Santo Teutonico is mentioned once. But here, too, almost everything is fictitious. The room that O'Flaherty occupied in the college is described incorrectly. Nonsense is also the claim that the building itself is the extraterritorial property of Vatican City. The building is the property of the fraternity, the territory is Italian, but the sovereignty is Vatican
- Details
- Written by: Stefan Heid
- Category: Recommended reading