The saint ate very little, spent most of his day hearing confessions, slept a few hours each night and prayed much. Imagine how the next curé felt when parishioners reminded him of the sanctity of his predecessor.

My bishop, the Rt Rev Alan Williams of Brentwood, recently reminded me that, according to most parishioners, the best parish priest is the one before you.

I have this experience not only because my immediate predecessor - Fr Andrew Hurley - was indeed a saintly figure, but also because Fr Thomas Byles served in my parish of St Helen's, Ongar. This man of heroic virtue ministered here from 1905 to 1912.

I had known nothing about Fr Byles, who died helping others off the Titanic, until my bishop asked me to go to Ongar, a village parish just outside Brentwood in Essex. When I heard the priest's story, and was shown his picture and the stained-glass window dedicated to him in the small church, I thought more people should know about him.

I asked whether anyone had taken his Cause to Rome to start the canonisation process. I was surprised to hear no one had.

It was then that I decided to petition the Vatican to start the process. I was still in my old parish then and knew someone who worked for the BBC. I told him about my interest in Fr Byles and he said they would like to cover the story.

A taxi picked me up at 5am on the day I was moving to Ongar and dropped me off at the BBC studios. This was not my natural time to wake up, let alone travel. I was grilled on Radio 4's Today programme by John Humphrys, who asked why I thought this man should be recognised as a saint. It was a good question. Continue reading

Sources

• Catholic Herald, from an article by Fr Graham Smith.
• See also: Fr Thomas Byles, Hero of the Titanic, in the Marist Messenger.
• Image: Visit \ Tel Aviv

According to survivors' testimonies, Fr Thomas Byles twice refused a place on a lifeboat.

Rather, he stayed on the ship to pray with the passengers who were left aboard.

Fr Byles was one of 1500 people to die when the Titanic sank on April 15, 1912.

Fr Graham Smith, the priest at Fr Byles's former church, St Helens in Chipping Ongar, Essex, in England, is urging prayers for Fr Byles.

Fr Smith is also asking people to report any miracles they think might have come about after Fr Byles's intercession.

Continue reading

A law firm in the German city of Bonn was contracted to act for the Pope against Titanic magazine for front and back covers that, in the words of a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops' Conference, "overstepped every measure of decency".

A state court in Hamburg issued a temporary injunction against the magazine, banning the magazine from distributing the issue any further or allowing the covers to be published on the Internet.

The German magazine sued by the Pope had satirical covers that referred to the recent Vatican scandal in which private papers were leaked to the Italian media.

On the front cover of Titanic, an apparently incontinent Pope Benedict appears in a cassock that is soiled yellow below the waist. Above the picture is the headline "Hallelujah in the Vatican: The leak has been found!"

On the back cover the Vatileaks satire continues, with the Pope shown from behind, this time with brown stains on his cassock. A headline reads "Another leak sourced!"

Titanic editor-in-chief Leo Fischer contested claims that the pictures damage the Pope's personal rights. He said they merely show that the Pope spilled his drink when celebrating with a glass of soda after the Vatileaks scandal was solved.

"Everyone knows that the Pope is a big fan of Fanta," Fischer said.

He expressed disappointment with the Hamburg court ruling, but said his magazine is prepared for a long court battle.

Titanic's website now shows the issue with its Vatileaks satire blacked out. A new front cover depicts a stain-free Pope clasping two foaming bottles of Fanta. The new headline reads "Titanic banned — Pope overcome with joy!"

Sources:

Spiegel Online

The Independent

Image: The Independent

This year, as the centenary is kept of the "unsinkable" liner's collision with an iceberg in the Atlantic, and as we remember and pray for its 1,500 or more victims, there is another hero of the Titanic who merits our attention: a parish priest from Essex who went down with the ship and whose selfless actions were recalled by some of the survivors of the disaster.

Roussel Davids Byles (he took the name "Thomas" only upon his conversion to Catholicism) was born in Leeds in 1870, the grandson of the founder of The Yorkshire Observer, son of the city's leading Congregationalist minister and the nephew of a Liberal MP. He was educated at Rossall School, Lancashire, and in 1889 went up to Balliol College, Oxford. Having decided to embrace Anglicanism, rather than the Nonconformity of his childhood, he read Theology with the intention of taking Holy Orders. But in 1892 his younger brother William became a Catholic, an event that greatly influenced his own reception on the feast of Corpus Christi, May 24 1894 (hence the adoption of the name Thomas after St Thomas Aquinas). When he took his examinations in Theology he did so as a Catholic - probably becoming the first to do so at Oxford under Anglican examiners.

He then acted as a tutor to a German prince, returning to Yorkshire in 1895 and offering himself to Cardinal Vaughan of Westminster as a student for the priesthood. He was sent to Oscott College, but his health failed. For the next three years he taught at St Edmund's College, Ware. In 1899 he entered the Beda College in Rome and was ordained as a priest in 1902.

Fr Byles was among the founders of the Catholic Missionary Society, with which he worked from 1903 to 1904.

Continue reading: The priest who prayed the rosary and heard Confessions as the Titanic sank

Image: Catholic Herald

Jesuit Father Frank Browne, 1880-1960, became a prominent documentary photographer and a much-decorated chaplain in the British army in World War I.

A collection of his photographs, "Father Browne's Titanic Album", has been reprinted to mark the centenary of the demise of the massive liner, which was constructed in Belfast, Ireland, and was believed to be unsinkable.