
There was one goal? to save Jews and POWs from the Nazi machine. O’Flaherty sprang into action, organizing a sophisticated team that included men and women of many nationalities, religions, and political views. As a top man in the Vatican Holy Office, Msgr. Kappler was a notorious hater of the Jews, persecuting them at every turn. After the surrender of Italy in 1943, Rome came under the command of Nazi Colonel Herbert Kappler of the dreaded SS, who began the deportation of Italian Jews to Auschwitz. It was here in Rome that his greatest work began. After his ordination, he served first as an Apostolic Delegate in Egypt, Haiti, Santo Domingo, and Czechoslovakia, then in Rome at the Holy Office (now the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith).


From an early age, however, he knew his calling was to the priesthood. The Scarlet and the Black tells the astonishing and heroic true story of Monsignor Hugh O'Flaherty, the man dubbed "The Scarlet Pimpernel of the Vatican" during World War II.īorn in Killarney, Ireland, Hugh O’Flaherty was an avid athlete? becoming a formidable boxer, handball player, hurler, and golfer. It has all the hallmarks of a best-selling fictional thriller: espionage, conspiracy, a struggle against evil powers, undercover work by dark of night.
