Sacrifice of Titanic's Catholic priests recalled on 100th anniversary
Apr 19, 2012 : Three Catholic priests, including one hailed by Pope Saint Pius X as
a martyr for the faith, were among the victims of the Titanic disaster remembered
during its 100th anniversary on April 14-15.All three of the European-born priests
– Father Juozas Montvila of Lithuania, Father Josef Peruschitz, O.S.B. of Bavaria,
and English rector Father Thomas Byles – are said to have declined lifeboats in order
to offer spiritual aid to travelers who perished in the shipwreck, which claimed 1503
lives. An eyewitness account of the 1912 sinking, published in the Jesuit journal
“America,” described how “all the Catholics on board desired the assistance of priests
with the greatest fervor.” The priests led passengers in recitation of the Rosary,
and “aroused those condemned to die to say acts of contrition and prepare themselves
to meet the face of God.” According to the eyewitness, they were “engaged continuously
giving general absolution to those who were about to die.” Fr. Byles and Fr. Peruschitz
had offered Mass on the morning of Sunday, April 14, only hours before the supposedly
“unsinkable” ship struck an iceberg in the North Atlantic. Prior to the crash, both
men had preached sermons on humanity's need for the spiritual “lifeboat” offered by
Jesus Christ amid the dangers of the world. Born in Yorkshire, England during
1870, Fr. Byles converted to Catholicism from Anglicanism in 1894. He ministered to
Catholics on the Titanic while traveling to the U.S. for the wedding of his brother,
who had also entered the Church. After Fr. Byles' death in the shipwreck, St. Pius
X reportedly described him as a “martyr.” A plaque at his onetime parish recalls his
“heroic death in the disaster,” after “earnestly devoting his last moments to the
religious consolation of his fellow passengers.” Fr. Peruschitz was also described
by eyewitnesses as declining a place on the lifeboats. The Bavarian priest-monk, born
in 1871, was traveling on the Titanic to take up his new position as principal of
a Benedictine high school in Minnesota. His body, like those of the other two priests,
was not recovered. A memorial at his onetime monastery in Bavaria reads: “May Joseph
Peruschitz rest in peace, who on the ship Titanic piously sacrificed himself.” The
youngest of the three priests, Fr. Juozas Montvila, was born in 1885. Ordained in
1908, he secretly ministered to Eastern Catholics in Lithuania, whose faith had been
outlawed by authorities of the Russian Empire. Under government pressure, Fr. Montvila
was forced to leave the country in order to continue his priestly ministry. He boarded
the Titanic in Southhampton, England, with the intention of emigrating to the U.S.
Reports from the sinking ship recounted how the Byzantine-rite priest “served his
calling to the very end.” Since then, there have been efforts toward his canonization