June 12, 1944: Pope Meets Irish Troops Who Liberated Rome from Nazis
Eighty years ago today, the great Pope Pius XII honored the 38th Irish Brigade that entered Rome among the first allied troops who liberated the Eternal City from Nazi occupation. Relatives of the WWII troops returned to Rome to commemorate the event and its historic significance.
While the Vatican remained officially neutral during the Nazis’ heyday of power, Pius XII oversaw an incredibly risky, heroic, and successful network that rescued hundreds of thousands of Jews and escaped Allied POWs from pursuing Nazis. The Jewish Virtual Library states, “It is now established that the Pope supervised a rescue network which saved 860,000 Jewish lives - more than all the international agencies put together.” No doubt that June 12 of 1944, as Pius XII faced 150 Irish troops, his heart was full of gratitude not only for the approaching end of war and the Vatican’s newly-won security, but also for the end of the necessity to risk life and limb on a daily basis to save the Nazis’ victims.
The American soldiers and other Allied troops who invaded Italy and liberated Rome have not always received the attention and praise they deserve, as more famous campaigns such as the D-Day invasion overshadow their achievements in the public’s memory. It is good to remember how many men fought and died to defeat Italian Fascists and German Nazis in Italy.
Catholic News Agency (CNA) explained that Irish bagpipers from the 38th brigade had played for the pope back in 1944, and in 2024 bagpipers played the same tune at the anniversary commemoration. CNA provided some background on the anniversary:
“On June 12, 1944, Pius XII gave an enthusiastic speech in English thanking the members of the 38th (Irish) Brigade as he welcomed them to the Vatican…The 38th (Irish) brigade formed in 1942 and was made up of Irish-born and second- and third-generation Irish born in Britain. The brigade had fought in Tunisia and the landings in Sicily before joining the campaign to liberate the Italian peninsula from German occupation.
Pope Pius XII said after the liberation of Rome that he wanted to say thank you to the Irish regiment who had been the first ones to come into Rome, [British Amb.] Trott explained, so he invited them to come back from the front for the day for an audience at the Vatican.
Historic news footage from 1944 published by Pathé shows Pius XII encouraging Allied troops visiting the Vatican to always remain ‘close to God’ before giving them a papal blessing.”
You can watch the footage below:
The Irish brigade’s Catholic chaplain Fr. Dan Kelleher had assisted in arranging the papal audience, during which Pope Pius XII told the crowd of (mostly Catholic) soldiers they came from “the nation which has ever belonged to God’s church since St. Patrick.” Pius further lauded the Irish, “We are well aware of the good which the Irish have done in spreading the faith from the shores of their green isle into the United States of America, Australia, South Africa, and many other nations.”
Current British Ambassador Trott, whose grandfather was part of the Italian liberation force, “also recalled the heroic witness of Ireland’s Monsignor Hugh O’Flaherty, who worked with Trott’s predecessor, Sir D’Arcy Osborne, the British envoy to the Holy See, to protect the vulnerable from within the walls of Vatican City during World War II,” CNA added. The powerful movie The Scarlet and the Black, starring Gregory Peck (as O’Flaherty), John Gielgud (as Pius XII), and Christopher Plummer (as Nazi Herbert Kappler), previously told the story of the Vatican’s network to save Allied POWs and Jews.
Sadly, our current pope is a far cry from the courage and holiness of Pope Pius XII, but citizens in Italy, America, the UK, and across the Western World are beginning to stand up and realize how important it is to protect their liberties from the new fascists, Nazis, and tyrants. We can only hope and pray that we will be as triumphant as the WWII generation was. So today we remember the men who liberated Italy and the Vatican clerics and laymen who rescued so many hundreds of thousands of innocents from the clutches of the Nazis.