The good priest who impressed everyone from popes to presidents

THE clergy have been taking a bit of pasting in recent days, but the World War One armistice commemorations yesterday reminded me of an extraordinary 1971 interview with a priest.

I came across him in the LBJ Library in Austin, Texas, during the summer. He was a German who got stranded in Ireland during the war and then went on to become a priest.

Wunibald W Schneider was born in Pollenfeld, Bavaria, in 1907. Growing up he wished to be a priest, but in the aftermath of the World War One things were very bad in Germany and, as one of a family of 12, his parents could not afford to send him to a seminary. He became a religious brother instead.