Husbands and Wives, Little Children Lost Their Lives--More on the Titanic

One of Father Browne's photographs

showing third class passengers aboard

the Titanic

To commeorate the centenary of the Titanic I have a story about an almost-priest who, unlike the three priests who went down with the ship (see blog entry for April 14) got safely off the ship--long before it met the iceberg--and lived to tell about it.  In fact, we owe many of our photos of the Titanic to this Jesuit seminarian.  Father Francis Browne wasn’t yet ordained at the time of his voyage on the Titanic—he was a Jesuit scholastic returning  to Dublin from England.  Browne was an orphan who had been raised by his uncle, Robert Browne, the Bishop of Cloyne in Ireland.  Bishop Browne was very indulgent towards his Jesuit nephew and even before the young man had entered the Jesuits had bought him a camera—something expensive and rather rare at the time, and, given the complexity of the photographic processes in the early 20^th century, something for professionals.  But Jesuits always become professional what whatever skill in which they develop an interest and Frank Browne combined a photographer’s natural eye with Jesuit enthusiasm to become a world-class photographer who would gain a reputation for his skill with a camera. 

       His Lordship, as Irish Bishops are still called, also bought the young Jesuit a 1^st class passage (Bishops and Jesuits don’t know that there is any other kind) on the overnight voyage of the Titanic from Southampton via Cherbourg to Queenstown (now Cobh) where his Episcopal palace and Cathedral stood.  The ship left Southampton at noon on April 11^th, touched at Cherbourg and departed from there at 8:30 pm and continued on to Queenstown, the port of Cork, arriving at 11:30 am on the 12^th.  It would anchor there less than two hours, picking up mail and passengers for hte final leg of its maiden voyage.   At dinner on the evening of the 11^th off Cherbourg, Frank Browne was seated with an American couple who were so charmed by him that they offered to buy his passage the rest of the way to the New York.  This sort of thing used to happen to Jesuits all the time before they got into Justice and Peace; now it is mostly the Legionaires of Christ and Opus Dei who know how to work the well-to-do.  Of course Browne needed permission from his superiors and so he hopefully cabled for permission.  When the ship docked in Queenstown, Browne was handed the answer: a cable from his Provincial saying GET OFF THAT SHIP--Provincial.  Browne was understandably disappointed—for a few days.  After the ship had met its fate, Browne folded the telegram and carried it in his pocket for the rest of his life.  Unanswered prayers…    

       The Bishop had also given his nephew a letter of introduction to the Titanic’s bursar, Hugh McElroy.  Under McElroy’s patronage, Browne had the run of the ship and spent most of his short time aboard taking pictures—passengers, crew, the gymnasium, the first class dining saloon, his cabin, and, most important, the Marconi room where was the wireless that three days later would send out the calls for help.  Browne’s photo of the Marconi room is the only photograph of that room.  When Browne disembarked at Queenstown his camera came with him of course so thanks a Jesuit Provincial’s terse order we have the final surviving photographs of the Titanic.

      Browne has another claim to fame.  A classmate at the Royal University of Ireland of James Joyce, he is figured in Finnegan’s Wake as Mr. Browne, the Jesuit. 

It Was Sad When That Great Ship Went Down

I was planning on doing several entries on Saint Peter’s Basilica, but a friend sent me a link to a page about Catholic priests on the Titanic and I thought I would distill the information and pass it on to you.  I have always been fascinated by the Titanic.  When I was a child we had a housekeeper who had a ticket for passage on the Titanic.  She was a young girl emigrating from Ireland to the United States and had purchased a berth in steerage.  In one of those bizarre twists of luck, she gave it up for a cousin to come in her place.  The cousin did not survive.  In the next entry I will write about a Jesuit who was on the Titanic who had a similar twist of luck.  But for now, brief stories about the three priests who were on the ship and went down with it.  
       Father Juozas Montvila was a Byzantine Rite Catholic Priest from Lithuania.  Father Montvila was only 29 years old and had been ordained just over four years.  Lithuania was part of the Russian Empire and Eastern Rite Catholics were persecuted in an attempt to force them to renounce the Pope and become subject to the Russian Orthodox Church.  Father Montvila was also a proponent of Lithuanan nationalism and the preservation of the Lithuanian language—actions which the Czarist officials saw as treasonous.  He was a gifted artist and provided the illustrations for various nationalist magazines, books, and newspapers.  In trouble with the Russian overlords for his patriotic activities and pastoral work, Fahter Montvila decided to emigrate to the United States to work among Lithuanian emigrants in New York.  He travelled to England where he bought a ticket for the Titanic.  He was offered a place in the lifeboats but refused in favor of giving the place to another.  His cause for canonization has been proposed by the Church in Lithuania.   
    Father Joseph Peruschitz was a monk of the Benedictine Abbey of Scheyern in Bavaria.  He was forty-one years old and had been a priest and a monk seventeen years.  He was on his way to Saint John’s Abbey on Collegeville Minnesota where he was serve  as headmaster of the monks’ prep-school.   On Sunday morning, April 14^th—the day the Titanic would hit the iceberg—Father Joseph said Mass for German and Hungarian speaking passengers in the third class lounge.  
      Father Thomas Byles was a convert to the faith—his father was a Congregationalist Minister in Leeds England.  His brother William had preceded him into the Church and had also tried his vocation—as a Jesuit.  William had not persisted in the seminary, however, left, emigrated to the United States, and fallen in love.  Thomas was on his way to New York to officiate at his brother’s wedding.  Father Byles was on the upper deck of the Titanic reciting his breviary when the ship hit the iceberg at 11:40 pm that night.  He had celebrated Mass that morning in the Second Class Lounge, preaching in English and French.  After the collision, Father Byles went to the steerage passengers and helped keep them calm and lead them up to the open decks where he and Father Peruschitz prayed the rosary with them. Like Father Montvila, Fathers Byles and Peruschitz declined places in the lifeboats.  As waves came over the stern, Father Byles gave general absolution to the vast crowd, mostly of steerage passengers, gathered around him and Father Peruschitz.