Msgr Hugh O'Flaherty disguised himself from Nazi secret police and set up safe houses in Rome between 1943 and 1944.

One of the safe houses was right next to the secret police's main headquarters in Rome.

A plaque in his honour was unveiled at the Teutonic (German College) at the Vatican on Sunday.

A commemorative Mass was celebrated at the German College.

Msgr O'Flaherty became known as the "Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican".

By using fake IDs, disguises and operating a communications network inside and outside the Vatican, he was able to outfox Nazi efforts to capture him.

The priest was able to give refuge to 6500 Jewish refugees and Allied POWs, hiding them in houses, convents and monasteries across Rome and even inside the Vatican itself.

Ironically, much of his clandestine operation was conducted from within the Vatican's German College, where Mgr O'Flaherty lived for 22 years.

Speaking at the unveiling of the plaque, Ireland ambassador Emma Madigan said the priest's compassion was not bounded by lines of nationality or religious community.

Quoting Pope Francis, she said there are people who "do not grow accustomed to evil. Who defeat it with good".

She thanked Msgr O'Flaherty, who died in 1963, on behalf of all those he saved.

"There are occasions when quite ordinary people find themselves in very dark times. When people whose great passions are golf and Kerry football, find themselves, in Joyce's phrase, in the midst of history that has become ‘a nightmare from which we are trying to awake'," the ambassador said.

"Directed and sustained by his faith, he gave up the comfort and security he had, to try and lead as many people as possible out of that nightmare."

"Happily for so many people, Mgr O'Flaherty united that faith and that compassion with apparently bottomless courage and resourcefulness. Some would put that down to his Kerry roots!"

Sources

• Premier.org.uk
• Catholic Ireland
• Image: Irish Central

A report in The Guardian newspaper says Vatican insiders believe this new evidence will restore the late pope's reputation by revealing "the part that he played in saving lives and opposing Nazism".

The author, Gordon Thomas, is a Protestant. His new book, The Pope's Jews, to be published in March, details how Pius gave his blessing to the establishment of safe houses in the Vatican and Europe's convents and monasteries.

The pope oversaw a secret operation with code names and fake documents for priests who risked their lives to shelter Jews, some of whom were even made Vatican subjects.

Priests were instructed to issue baptismal certificates to hundreds of Jews hidden in Genoa, Rome and elsewhere in Italy. More than 4000 Jews were hidden in convents and monasteries across Italy.

More than 2000 Jews in Hungary were given fabricated Vatican documents identifying them as Catholics and a network saved German Jews by bringing them to Rome.

During and immediately after the war, The Guardian reports, the pope was considered a Jewish saviour. Jewish leaders — such as Jerusalem's chief rabbi in 1944 — said the people of Israel would never forget what he and his delegates "are doing for our unfortunate brothers and sisters at the most tragic hour".

The pope's image turned sour in the 1960s, thanks to Soviet antagonism towards the Vatican and a German play by Rolf Hochhuth, The Deputy.

The Guardian said the Vatican is so excited by The Pope's Jews that it is supporting a feature documentary film being planned by a British producer who has bought the rights to it.

Sources:

The Guardian

MacMillan

Image: The Guardian