April 14: The Unshakable Priests of the Unsinkable Ship

Welcome to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Today is April 14th, and our story is The Unshakable Priests of the Unsinkable Ship. On the night of April 14, 1912, the unsinkable Titanic struck ice. In the terrifying hours that followed, more than 1,500 men, women, and children died a cold and horrible death in the North Atlantic Ocean. But they didn't die alone. In their last moments, as the unsinkable Titanic sank, three priests stood by the doomed passengers' sides, hearing their confessions, praying the rosary, and, at the very last, granting general absolution.

One of those priests was Father Thomas Biles, an Englishman who, almost 20 years before, had converted to Catholicism while studying at Oxford. Since 1905, he had served as a parish priest in Essex, and was on his way to New York to celebrate the wedding mass of his younger brother. Another was Father Yosus Montvila. Only 27 at the time, Father Montvila was fleeing the Tsarist regime in his native Lithuania, which had forbidden Ukrainian Catholic priests from ministering to their flocks. As an Eastern Rite priest in union with Rome, Montvila had three options, convert to Russian Orthodoxy, endure persecution, or flee.

He chose to flee, planning upon his arrival in America to serve the country's growing Ukrainian Catholic population. The third priest on board was the 41-year-old German scholar, Father Joseph Benedict Peruschitz, who was traveling to St. John's Abbey in Collegeville, Minnesota, to take up a teaching position on the school's faculty.

Father Biles was a first-class passenger on the Titanic. His fellow priests traveled in second class. All, however, received offers to enter the lifeboats and row away to safety after the ship struck an iceberg. None accepted those offers. Each knew his vocation called him to remain with the dying, even at the cost of his own life. When the Titanic slipped below the waterline at 2.20 a.m. on April 15th, all three priests disappeared with her. Their bodies were never recovered. The priests of the Titanic remind us that true courage is rooted in service and love.

Their selflessness illuminates what it means to live and die faithfully, placing God and neighbor above self. This week, seek one opportunity to serve someone selflessly, offering your time, energy, or prayers without expectation of return. Thank you for listening to the American Catholic Daily Reader podcast. Join us tomorrow, April 15th, for another story of faith and courage in America.