PRIEST ON THE TITANIC

 

Three priests, including one now known as a martyr, offered spiritual comfort to fellow passengers on the doomed Titanic. They, along with 1500 others, perished in the icy Atlantic in 1912. All three of the European-born priests,  Father Juozas Montvila of Lithuania, Father Josef Peruschitz, O.S.B. a monk at Scheyern Abbey in 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.

FATHER THOMAS BYLES is being considered for canonization.  He was  was born Roussel Davids in Leeds, Yorkshire, the eldest of seven children of the Reverend Alfred Holden Byles, a Congregationalist minister, and his wife Louisa Davids. He went to Balliol College, Oxford, in 1889 to study theology, graduating with a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1894. While at Oxford, Byles converted to the Church of England, and later, like his younger brother William had done before, to the Roman Catholic faith, taking the name Thomas. In 1899, he went to the Beda College in Rome to study for the priesthood and was ordained in 1902. He was assigned to St Helen's Parish in Chipping Ongar, Essex in 1905, where he would remain until his death.

An invitation to officiate at the wedding of his younger brother William prompted father Thomas to make the trip to New York City. He said Mass on the morning of the sinking of the Titanic, the Octave of Easter, April 14, 1912, for both second- and third-class passengers in their respective lounges. The sermon was on, the need for a spiritual lifeboat in the shape of prayer and the sacraments when in danger of spiritual shipwreck in times of temptation.

Father Thomas was walking on the upper deck praying his breviary when the Titanic struck the iceberg. As the ship was sinking, he assisted many third-class passengers up to the boat deck to the lifeboats. He reputedly twice refused a place on a lifeboat.

Toward the end he recited the Rosary and other prayers, hearing confessions, and giving absolution to more than a hundred passengers who remained trapped on the stern of the ship after all of the lifeboats had been launched.

Helen Mary Mocklare, a third class passenger, offered more details about the final hours of the priest’s life.

“When the crash came we were thrown from our berths ... We saw before us, coming down the passageway, with his hand uplifted, Father Byles,” she recalled. “We knew him because he had visited us several times on board and celebrated Mass for us that very morning.”

“'Be calm, my good people,' he said, and then he went about the steerage giving absolution and blessings... A few around us became very excited and then it was that the priest again raised his hand and instantly they were calm once more. The passengers were immediately impressed by the absolute self-control of the priest.”

She recounted that a sailor “warned the priest of his danger and begged him to board a boat.” Although the sailor was anxious to help him, the priest twice refused to leave.. “After I got in the boat, which was the last one to leave, and we were slowly going further away from the ship, I could hear distinctly the voice of the priest and the responses to his prayers.”

His body, if recovered, was never identified. His brothers installed a door in his memory at St Helen's Catholic Church in Chipping Ongar, Essex. Pope Pius X later described him  as a "martyr for the Church".

Father Thomas has three times been portrayed in films about the disaster. In the 1979 television movie S.O.S. Titanic, he was portrayed by Matthew Guinness. In the 1997 film, Titanic, he was portrayed by James Lancaster, reciting the rosary and Revelation 21:4. Richard Basehart plays a thinly disguised Father Thomas in the 1953 film. His story is featured in a book written by Cady Crosby entitled A Titanic Hero: Thomas Byles. The book documents his early life, his years in ministry and his final hours on board the RMS Titanic.

Interestingly enough, Katherine and William did not reschedule their wedding. They had another priest perform the ceremony. In a Brooklyn newspaper it reported the bride and groom went home from the wedding and changed into mourning clothes and returned to the church for a memorial mass. The couple then left for a short honeymoon in New Jersey.

Later that year Katherine and William travelled to Europe. They visited London and the Houses of Parliament to meet 'Uncle Willie' (Sir W. P. Byles). Katherine had to wait outside in a parlor as women could not enter. According to family legend, a young man came to her and said "Hello Mrs Byles, I am here to give you a tour, my name is Winston Churchill". From London they travelled on to Rome where they had a private audience with the Pope, who declared Father Byles a martyr for the Church.