To commemorate his inspirational life, the Society of Jesus, the largest order of priests and brothers in the Roman Catholic Church, has chosen to highlight Fr. Walter Ciszek and the theme, Life in Service, for November’s Vocation Month.

Father Robert Ballecer, director of the Office of National Vocation Promotion for the Jesuits, explains, “Walter Ciszek’s work is a legacy of the frontier spirit of the Society of Jesus. It’s the spirit of ‘Where is God calling me today?’ Walter Ciszek answered the call by going to the Soviet Union. Today, Jesuits are working around the globe on the frontiers – from building schools in Malawi to aiding migrants at a small border town between the United States and Mexico. That’s the spirit of the Society; that’s the spirit of service.”

According to Fr. Ballecer, Fr. Ciszek is still beloved by American Jesuits, and those who knew him remember his kindness and humility. Among other tributes, Ciszek Hall, the community of young Jesuits in “First Studies” at Fordham University, is named for Fr. Ciszek.

A Call Answered

Born in 1904 in Shenandoah, Pa., to Polish immigrants, Fr. Ciszek joined the Jesuits in 1928. The next year, he learned that Pope Pius XI was calling on seminarians to enter a new Russian center in Rome to prepare priests for work in Russia. For Fr. Ciszek, it was “almost like a direct call from God.”

Jesuit Father Walter Ciszek (center) in 1938.

Missioned to Rome to study theology and the Byzantine rite, Fr. Ciszek was ordained in 1937, but since priests could not be sent to Russia, he was assigned to work in Poland. When war broke out in 1939, Fr. Ciszek was able to enter Russia with false identification papers. He worked as an unskilled laborer until June 1941 when the secret police arrested him as a suspected spy.

After his arrest, Fr. Ciszek found himself in the infamous Lubianka Prison in Moscow, where he was interrogated as a “Vatican spy” and sentenced to 15 years of hard labor in Siberia. Although forced to work in a Gulag coal mine, Fr. Ciszek found ways to hear confessions and say Mass.

“For all the hardships and suffering endured there, the prison camps of Siberia held one great consolation for me: I was able to function as a priest again. I was able to say Mass again, although in secret, to hear confessions, to baptize, to comfort the sick, and to minister to the dying,” he wrote.

In 1955, Fr. Ciszek’s sentence ended early since he had surpassed his work quotas, and he was freed from the labor camps but forced to live in the Gulag city of Norilsk, where he worked in a chemical factory. Happily, after decades of being presumed dead, Fr. Ciszek was finally allowed to write to family members in the United States.

In Norilsk, Fr. Ciszek and other priests ministered to a growing parish but, before too long, the KGB threatened to arrest him if he continued his ministry. Missioned to another city, the KGB quickly shut him down again.

Then, in 1963, Fr. Ciszek learned he was going home. In a release negotiated by President John F. Kennedy, he and an American student were returned to the United States in exchange for two Soviet agents. Following his return, Fr. Ciszek worked at the John XXIII Center at Fordham University (now the Center for Eastern Christian Studies at the University of Scranton in Pennsylvania), until his death in 1984.

Jesuits Called to the Frontiers

Like Fr. Ciszek and his Jesuit brothers, the present-day Society of Jesus is also called to the frontiers.

Fr. Ballecer explains, “In Fr. Ciszek’s time, the frontiers were physical boundaries, parts of the world we hadn’t fully explored. Today, the frontiers are often in new areas, including media, science and technology. From Jesuits working with a development team on a particle accelerator in Europe to the Higher Education at the Margins program, which brings college courses to refugee camps, Jesuits aspire to serve where the need is greatest.”

An Inspiring Life in Service

A hometown welcome for Fr. Ciszek upon his return to the United States.

A quarter century after his death, Fr. Ciszek’s life is still inspiring those considering a Jesuit vocation, and soon even more people may learn of his legacy. This past March, the Vatican gave its formal approval to begin the canonization process for Fr. Ciszek.

Fr. Ballecer says Fr. Ciszek is more relevant today than he ever was. “A life in service like Walter Ciszek’s means commitment; it means something that’s unknown; it means relinquishing control of your life to something that’s bigger than you. What will you do when someone asks you to do something difficult, but worthwhile?”

In his memoir describing his years in Russia, “He Leadeth Me,” Fr. Ciszek wrote: “My aim in entering Russia was the same from beginning to end: to help find God and attain eternal life.” By devoting his life to serving God and his people, Fr. Ciszek succeeded in both goals.

“The Society rejoices that the church canonizes a new saint from among us, proposes him as a model to all the faithful, and invites them to seek his intercession,” writes Jesuit Father General Adolfo Nicolás in a letter to all Jesuits published in America magazine.

Fr. Berthieu, martyred in Madagascar in 1896, was a diocesan priest for nine years before deciding to enter the Society of Jesus at age 35. A highly successful missionary, he was appointed to the Madagascar mission where he nearly tripled the number of mission stations on the island’s northern end.

While accompanying refugees who were attempting to escape a violent rebellion, Fr. Berthieu was attacked and brought to the attackers’ village, where their chief lived. Fr. Berthieu refused to accept the chief’s offer to become a counselor to his tribe. The chief promised to spare Fr. Berthieu’s life if he would renounce his faith, but Fr. Berthieu replied that he would rather die than abandon his religion. Fr. Berthieu was then attacked and killed by several men with clubs, and his body was dumped into a river.

Reflecting on the new Jesuit saint, Father General Nicolás, writes:  “May the Holy Spirit help us put into practice the choices of Jacques Berthieu: his passion for a challenging mission that led him to another country, another language, and another culture; his personal attachment to the Lord expressed in prayer; his pastoral zeal, which was simultaneously a fraternal love of the faithful entrusted to his care, and a commitment to lead them higher on the Christian way; and finally, a life lived as gift, a choice lived out every day until the death which definitively configured him to Christ.”

Blessed Kateri Tekakwitha was born in 1656 in Ossernenon (now Auriesville) in upstate New York. Her father was a Mohawk chief, and her Catholic mother was a member of the Algonquin nation. At age 4, she survived a smallpox epidemic that killed most of her village and her family, and she suffered from poor eyesight and health for the remainder of her life due to the illness.

Blessed Kateri, deeply moved by the preaching of the Jesuits who traveled among the villages, was baptized by the Jesuits at age 20. She then dedicated her life to prayer, penance, caring for the sick and infirm and adoration of the Eucharist. In 1677, she began a 200-mile trek to a Jesuit mission in Canada where she could more openly practice her faith. Her health continued to deteriorate, and she died on April 17, 1680, at age 24.

Blessed Kateri also has a special connection to the Jesuits’ Fordham University in New York. While it was not the official miracle that paved the way to her sainthood, she is attributed with saving the life of Fordham football player John Szymanski over 80 years ago. When Szymanski suffered a severe head injury during a 1931 Fordham football game, his surgeon announced there was no hope for his recovery, and Szymanski received last rites. But Fordham students began praying a novena and asked God to heal their classmate through the intercession of Blessed Kateri. Szymanski made a full recovery.

Blessed Peter Calungsod, or Pedro, as he is known, was a lay Catholic from Cebu, Philippines. He accompanied Jesuit missionaries to Guam as a catechist and was martyred there in 1672. As a young boy, Calungsod studied in the Jesuit town of Loboc in Bohol. He was chosen at age 14 to accompany the Jesuits in their mission to the Marianas Islands. At 17 he and Blessed Jesuit Father Diego Luis de San Vitores were martyred in Guam for their missionary work.

For more on these new saints, visit the following: EWTN News, Fordham Magazine, Manila Bulletin and Catholic News Service. The New York Province Jesuits also have several podcasts about Blessed Kateri on their website, including one with Jesuit Father Peter Schineller, province archivist, on the canonization process and the meaning of her life for us today.

Raised in New Orleans to devout Catholic parents, Father Miller decided at the age of 16 to follow in the footsteps of his older brother and join the Jesuits.  In all, six of his seven siblings would become Jesuit priests or nuns.

When he was missioned to Sri Lanka in 1948 at the age of 23, Father Miller traveled by train to New York and then boarded a ship for the long voyage to South Asia, finally arriving at the Jesuit mission in Batticaloa.

Before Father Miler’s arrival, Jesuit missionaries had come in waves to Sri Lanka. Although French missionaries had traditionally been sent to the country, in the 1930s, the Vatican called upon Americans from French Louisiana to help out with the Jesuit schools in eastern Sri Lanka.

“We didn’t volunteer for a few weeks, a month or a year. It was for life,” Father Miller said about his 60 years of service to the people of Batticaloa as educator, priest, protector and witness.

Through the years, Father Miller taught physics, English and history, and coached the soccer team at St. Michael’s College, a boys’ school founded in 1873.  He worked actively to build bridges between communities and documented the unrest in Sri Lanka that claimed thousands of lives.  Many people simply disappeared during the Sri Lankan Civil War and a 1980s insurrection; one of those still missing is Father Miller’s friend and colleague, Jesuit Father Eugene John Hebert.  Father Hebert, who was known for his human rights work, disappeared in August of 1990.

In 2009, unsure whether he would stay in the United States, Father Miller returned to his native New Orleans. Once there, he realized that his true home was in Batticaloa, and he quickly returned.

In this video piece, Father Miller talks with great love about his home in Batticaloa.

Two years ago, having just pronounced my first vows as a Jesuit novice in Grand Coteau, Louisiana, I was on a flight bound for London. All of a sudden it hit me:  For the first time, I was arriving in England as a Jesuit. Four centuries earlier, my brother Jesuits had arrived under starkly different circumstances. They had to enter the country in disguise, under assumed names and beneath the watchful eyes of priest-hunters. Edmund Campion, for one, passed himself off as a jewel merchant named Mr. Edmunds. Having left England eight years earlier to become a priest and a Jesuit, he was for that reason regarded as a traitor and public enemy.

Campion and his companions—Robert Southwell, Nicholas Owen and Henry Walpole—were among the first Jesuits I ever encountered. At that time, nearly ten years ago, I was an overly ambitious young graduate student at Oxford University, my sights set on a career in politics and foreign affairs. But, I also had a profound sense that the Lord was calling me deeper into prayer and union with him. When I began attending daily Mass at the university chaplaincy, I encountered one of the most astonishing preachers I had ever heard, a British Jesuit by the name of Nicholas King. Here was a man who had met the Word of God and knew how to help others do the same.

I soon began spiritual direction with Fr. Nick, and it was he who introduced me to the English martyrs. They instantly became both heroes and friends in the Lord, men who opened up vast new horizons for me and who pointed out a way of living in intimate friendship with Christ. These were men who had walked the very same streets that I now walked and who had heard the Lord say to them, as he had to the first disciples, “Follow me.” And they were cheerful! Nowadays people sometimes imagine martyrs as a gloomy lot. Not these men. They knew what awaited them when, not if, they were captured, but because they did it all for love, they were buoyed by that special grace that overtakes all lovers. They also acted out of the boldness that comes from the union of hearts and minds within the Society, where all the missions of individual Jesuits are inextricably linked. As Campion famously wrote to government authorities shortly before he was captured, “And touching our Society, be it known to you that we have made a league—all the Jesuits in the world—cheerfully to carry the cross you shall lay upon us and never to despair your recovery.”

Given what I owe to Edmund Campion—both because of his example and his prayers—it was a real grace to be sent to Campion Hall, the Jesuit academic community at Oxford, for my first mission as a Jesuit scholastic. At the end of my novitiate experience, the provincial asked me to return to Oxford to finish the doctorate in international law that I had begun but had left unfinished once I discerned my vocation to the Society. So, I spent the first year and a half of First Studies back in the place where I had originally heard the Lord’s call. This time around, though, I found myself in a whole new role—as a partner in the Society’s mission to the University.

The primary focus of my apostolic work was a vocations group for eight young men discerning the priesthood and religious life. But, I also helped Fr. Nick and a Benedictine scripture scholar lead a group of undergraduate students—consisting mostly of non-believers—on a study-tour of the Holy Land. In both contexts, I found myself looking to Fr. Ignatius for guidance. As a student in several Spanish universities and finally at the University of Paris, Ignatius developed a way of proceeding that remains definitive for us to this day, and not only in the university apostolate—engaging in spiritual conversation. In discussions with fellow students, he looked for where the Lord was already at work and where he could help them to encounter Him. The experience of trying to do the same at Oxford taught me an important lesson:  At a time in Europe’s history when many people have lost all contact with the faith, personal conversations are one of the principal frontiers of the new evangelization.

The new Matteo Ricci Cultural Exchange Exhibition Center details the life of the Jesuit priest, known as Li Madou to Chinese people, through an array of exhibits and written accounts.

The center is located near the ruins of the first church and Jesuit house that Fr. Ricci and his companion Jesuit Father Michele Ruggieri were allowed to build after they arrived in China in 1583. The church, called “Xianhua Temple” out of respect for Buddhist custom, was dedicated to the Blessed Mother.

Jesuit Father Gabriel Li Jiafang of Jiangmen, who attended the opening, hoped the exhibition, which is designed to boost tourism, would make more people aware of the missionary and the Catholic faith.

“The local Church has provided historical material such as books  and written records for the Ricci exhibition center which is managed by the  city museum. A replica of a Ricci statue owned by the parish is also erected there,” the pastor of Zhaoqing’s Immaculate Conception Church said.

Other exhibits include Fr. Ricci’s writings, items of clothing, scientific instruments and astronomical data, to help visitors understand his background, his six years in Zhaoqing (until 1589) and his contribution to cultural exchanges between East and West.

Clavius, who signed his 23 books Clavius Bambergensis, after his birthplace in Bamberg, was received into the Society of Jesus by St. Ignatius in 1555 and studied in Coimbra , Portugal, where he observed an eclipse of the sun, a portent of his later interest in astronomy. He became the Professor of Mathematics at the Jesuit Roman College in 1567 and held the chair until 1595.  After his retirement he revised his publications and focused his attention on astronomy.

Clavius’ great work lay in the teaching of mathematics. At the Roman College he fostered good scholars who went on to teach in the Jesuit Colleges throughout Europe. He published several manuals for teaching mathematics and wrote commentaries on the geometry of Euclid and Theodosius.

He came to public notice, however, with the reform of the calendar. The Julian calendar, prescribed for the Roman Empire by Julius Caesar in 45 BC, was current though Western Europe. But it was inaccurate, and the inaccuracies affected the dating of the spring equinox, and consequently of Easter. Gregory XIII commissioned a reform of the calendar and proclaimed it in 1582.

Clavius was given the task of explaining and defending the reform. This was a delicate task, because the reform meant that 10 days would be lost from the calendar in 1582. Such theft of time from people’s lives could cause riots. Some Protestant critics also saw the reform as an abuse of papal power.  Clavius published three books explaining and defending the reform.

This work focused his increasing interest in astronomy. One of his earlier books had been acommentary on the astronomical synthesis of an English thirteenth century teacher, Johannes Sacrobosco (John Holywood to his friends). This was based on the authoritative work of Ptolemy, a second century scholar from Alexandria. Clavius remained convinced of Ptolemy’s argument that the earth was the centre of the universe, and that other heavenly bodies revolved around it.  But although not persuaded by the heliocentric thesis of Copernicus, he was impressed by his arguments, as he was by the discoveries of Galileo. He saw the need for a reformed astronomical theory.

In this Clavius was true to his fundamental insight, that science needed to be founded on mathematics and on experiment, not simply on deduction and on ancient authorities. In this respect he was part of the beginnings of modern science. And his position provokes one of the great unresolvable ‘what ifs’ of Jesuit and European cultural history.

Clavius worked to persuade other Jesuits of the importance of mathematics in the educational curriculum.  In a draft revision of the Ratio Studiorum, the curriculum for Jesuit studies, he proposed that mathematics should be made central within the teaching of philosophy in Jesuit Colleges. He also proposed that the lack of good teachers should be remedied by a specialist academy for the training of gifted Jesuit mathematicians.

The response to the draft was that the lack of good teachers made the proposal unworkable. The final draft was simply aspirational in its general commendation of mathematics. At a time when the Jesuit Colleges played such an important part in higher education and culture in Europe, one wonders what would have been the effect of making mathematics a central part of their curriculum. Might the gaps that developed between church and science, and between metaphysics and the common scientific world view, have become so neuralgic?

Clavius made a key contribution to his age, but some doors even he was unable to unlock.

[Australian Province Express]

By Andy Hamilton SJ

Fr. Ruane, who entered the Society of Jesus upon graduating from St. Peter’s Preparatory in 1937, said that going to the missions appealed to him, and he was sent to the Philippines to study philosophy at Ateneo de Manila in July 1941. By 1942, all the priests and seminarians were placed under house arrest by the Japanese military, and in 1945, the Jesuits were moved to the Los Banos camp. They could take few belongings, and the 80 Jesuits were assigned to live in huts with 16 internees in each.

Given rice mixed with a little meat and water twice a day, Fr. Ruane said, “We were weak.” He said that they didn’t move around too much to preserve their strength and people would blackout often. “One pig would last for 1,000 servings.”

The priests would take turns saying Mass with the wine they had smuggled into the camp, and some of the Jesuits professors who would lecture the internees.

Fr. Ruane said they never gave up on the Americans and knew they were close since their airplane engines were stronger than the Japanese. Eventually, Fr. Ruane and the other internees were rescued by the U.S. troops.

Jesuit priests and seminarians, above, in a photo taken at Loyola College in Los Angeles after they were freed by American soldiers in 1945. Father John Ruane is in the top row, second from right.

After World War II, Fr. Ruane returned to the United States to be ordained; earned a doctorate in philosophy at Louvain, Belgium; and then returned to Cebu in the Philippines to teach Jesuit seminarians until 1969.

With the passing of Fr. Ruane, Jesuit Father James Reuter, now 95, is the only other Jesuit survivor. Fr. Reuter still lives in the Philippines.

The new, light-filled steel and concrete St. Claude la Colombiere Jesuit Community Residence, designed by the architectural firm Bohlin Cywinski Jackson, replaces the previous residence on the property which was built in 1961. Designed around a stone entry courtyard, the two-story chapel is the central design feature and the heart of this Jesuit community home. The facility provides rooms for the 38 members of the community along with a dining hall, commercial grade kitchen, living room, library, office and work space as well as recreational facilities.

“The new building, built in harmony with the beautiful site, will promote better spiritual and psychological health for our men,” notes Jesuit Father William Rickle, superior for the Colombiere Jesuit community.

As the need for assisted living had grown more pressing for the Maryland province, with more than 60 percent of the 349 Jesuits in the Maryland province 60 or older, officials began looking at their options to provide for its senior men in the Society.

Dedicated in the fall of 2011, the new structure is located on the highest point of the property, set among mature trees and open space. Since the need for assisted living is predicted to decrease in future years, the design of the building is flexible so that it can in the future serve as a community for Jesuits in active ministry, allowing the continuation of a dynamic Jesuit presence in Baltimore for decades to come.

In the video piece below, created by Halkin Photography, Jesuit Fathers Rickle and James Casciotti, socius for the Maryland province, discuss how the building ties in with the spiritual elements of Jesuit community life and, in turn, how the building fits into the landscape of the property.

This Sunday marks the 100^th anniversary of the sinking of the world’s most famous and ill-fated ocean liner, Titanic.  Among the lesser known stories surrounding the steamship’s last days is the fascinating tale of Irish Jesuit Father Francis Browne, whose photographs are some of the only surviving images of life onboard the luxury liner during its first, and final, voyage.

Fr. Browne sailed the first leg of the Titanic’s maiden voyage, between Southampton, England and Cobh, Ireland — taking a series of black-and-white photos of life onboard the opulent ship. He planned to stay on the ship to New York but was ordered by his Jesuit superior to return home instead.

That order saved his life.  After striking an iceberg on April 15, 1912, the Titanic took 1,500 people to a watery grave miles below the surface of the Atlantic.

Fr. Browne survived, as did his photographs, which were rediscovered in 1985 by a fellow priest.

Fr. Browne’s absorbing photographic record of the Titanic is documented in the book “Father Browne’s Titanic Album: Centenary Edition,” which has been rereleased by Ireland’s Messenger Publications to coincide with the anniversary.

The new edition of the book is edited by Jesuit Father Edward O’Donnell, and the foreword is written by Robert Ballard, who first located the ship’s wreckage in September 1985, the same month as a chance finding of 42,000 of Fr. Browne’s photographs in the basement of the Jesuits’ headquarters in Dublin.

Because of the remarkable documentation they provide of life on the ocean liner, Fr. Browne’s photographs were used as historic references during the set design process for the film “Titanic.”  Fr. Browne’s images have also been studied by maritime historians and engineers eagerly seeking answers to a tragedy that still grips the public’s imagination.

While onboard, the self-taught photographer managed to obtain pictures of the Titanic’s first-class accommodation and dining rooms as well as gymnasium and library.  He also captured passengers enjoying a stroll on the promenade, as well as many passengers in third class, recording some of those who would later perish in the freezing waters of the Atlantic. He took the last image of the Titanic’s captain, Edward Smith.

Fr. Browne’s story is as amazing as his unique photos. In 1912, the Jesuit novice was still three years from ordination.  But because of a gift from his uncle, he was able to experience the Titanic’s luxurious accommodation during the initial stages of its maiden voyage.

The young Jesuit photographed the Titanic leaving port for the last time as it left Queenstown, in County Cork, for New York. He could have been onboard: an American couple he befriended on the ship offered to fund the final leg of the journey to New York.

From the Titanic, Fr. Browne sent a telegram to his provincial in Dublin requesting permission to stay onboard. However, a frosty telegram awaited him in Queenstown: “Get off that ship.”

When news of the Titanic’s disastrous fate reached Fr. Browne, he folded the telegram, put it into his wallet and kept it there for the rest of his life. He later said it was the only time holy obedience had saved a life.

You can see some of Fr. Browne’s photographs via this link to FoxNews.com.

You can listen to an audio interview from the Jesuits of the Irish Province with Fr. Edward O’Donnell, who found Fr. Browne’s collection, here.

Messenger Publication’s book “Father Browne’s Titanic Album: Centenary Edition,” can be purchased at their website.

Fr. Browne, widely recognized as a skilled photographer, was often described as Ireland’s answer to Cartier-Breson. He first started taking photographs in 1897 and did so until his death in 1960.

So what was included in these negatives? The invaluable collection of photographs and mementos, which had been sitting in a Dublin basement, featured one-of-a-kind images of the Titanic, before it departed on it’s first and final voyage. Upon realizing the discovery, a collection of the images was published in 1997 known as ‘Father Browne’s Titanic Album.’ As the 100th anniversary of the boat’s sinking approaches in April, many of the photographs in the book have been digitally re-mastered and new photographs have been added for the centenary edition of the book.

As the story goes, Fr. Browne boarded the Titanic in Southampton and several days later he was ordered off the boat in Cobh, County Cork in Ireland by his Jesuit Provincial. An American couple offered to pay his fare to America, but unbeknownst to Fr. Browne, when his superior requested that he return to Dublin, his life was potentially saved.

“When Father Browne’s superior ordered him off the ship it essentially saved his life because very few men travelling in first class survived the tragedy when the boat sank,” said Fr. O’Donnell. “While he was having a meal in the first class dining room he got chatting to a wealthy American couple. They liked Fr. Browne and asked him to stay on the Titanic with them until the boat reached New York. The American couple even offered to pay the rest of his fare to New York but Fr. Browne told them that his superior in Dublin would never allow it so he had to get off the ship when it stopped in Cobh.”

“The American man said to Fr. Browne, ‘come on down to the Marconi room and we’ll send him [the Jesuit superior] a Marconigram (a message sent via radio) and we’ll tell him that we’ll pay your way to New York’. When Fr. Browne went down to the Marconi room he took a picture. It was the only picture to be taken of the room – and any films you’ve ever seen that have had the Marconi room in it based it on Fr. Browne’s photograph.”

The telegram was sent by the wealthy Americans to the Irish superior of the Jesuits but after the Titanic stopped in Queenstown in Cobh, Fr. Browne was instructed to return to Dublin. The water near Queenstown in Cobh wasn’t deep enough for the Titanic to dock so the only way it could be reached was by another boat called the Ireland.

“The Ireland set off towards the Titanic with bags of mail and the 123 Irish passengers who boarded the ship. Captain Tobin was in charge of the Ireland and he had a small envelope addressed to Fr. Browne. Inside was a note with five words on it – it read: ‘Get Off That Ship – Provincial’.”

“Fr. Browne kept the note in his wallet for the rest of his life and said that it was the only time that holy obedience saved a man’s life,”  said O’Donnell

Fr. Browne used what time he had to photograph the Titanic when it arrived in Cobh. One photograph shows a man climbing one of the ship’s large funnels and at the time it was regarded as a bad omen.

“The superstitious people of Cobh said when they saw it that no good could come out of the ship’s journey and that the man in the picture was not a man at all – they claimed that he was the devil.

“The picture shows a tiny black dot on the fourth of the ship’s funnels and it’s actually been confirmed that the black dot was an Irish stowaway who boarded the ship at Southampton. Apparently he climbed down the funnel into the room where the mail was being kept and his pals put him inside one of the mail bags and he was loaded on to the Ireland and managed to get home to his native Cobh.”

Fr. Browne’s photographs have been used as evidence to support  facts about the Titanic.

One of the most contentious issues which split opinion amongst Titanic experts was whether the ship divided into two after it hit the iceberg on April 15, 1912.

Dr. Robert D Ballard, the former US Navy officer who discovered the wreck of the Titanic in 1985, used Fr. Browne’s photographs to confirm that the boat had in fact split in half.

“When Dr. Ballard discovered the wreck he found that the boat was in two pieces almost half a mile apart.”

“Some survivors said that the ship split in two just before it sank whilst others said it went down in one piece. No one knew who to believe.”

“When Robert Ballard found the boat it was solved for all time. Ballard used photographs taken by Fr. Browne to explain why the boat split in two. It was because of the grand staircase that the boat split – it was nine stories high and was the weakest part of the ship. If the Titanic was going to split anywhere it was going to be where the grand staircase was.”

“The Titanic actually split down the middle of where Fr. Browne’s room was because his bedroom was in one half of the wreckage and his living room was in the other half almost half a mile away. Fr. Browne’s documentation of the Titanic was so concise that Oscar winning director James Cameron used his photographs as a reference when designing the ship’s bridge for his 1997 movie ‘Titanic’.”

“A friend of mine is the secretary of the Titanic Historical Society and was advisor to James Cameron’s movie about the Titanic. He had all of Fr. Browne’s photographs and told Mr. Cameron that he had forgotten to consult them when designing the set. Mr. Cameron then used Fr. Browne’s photographs to redesign the bridge of the boat.”

He added: “I hope people still enjoy the book. It’s a wonderful documentation of life on the ship before it sank. It’s poignant that we have released it again to mark the 100th anniversary.”

[The Derry Journal]