Fr Edward Flanagan
I have read with great delight the news that the cause for the canonisation of Fr Edward Flanagan will be officially opened next month. Fr Flanagan was a native of County Roscommon and the founder of Boys Town in Nebraska.
For more read the story here: http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/boys-town-founder-to-be-named-servant-of-god/
I am especially pleased to see that much of the impetus for Fr Flanagan’s cause has come from the laity who have recognised Fr Flanagan’s sanctity and who have been inspired by his example and who have specifically petitioned and prayed for the opening of his cause. I wish the cause every success, and look forward to a new Irish saint in due course.
Boys Town was the subject of a famous film made in 1938 – Spencer Tracy won an Academy Award for his portrayal of Fr Flanagan. What a different era in Hollywood!
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoofjH022pU]
I remember the late Fr William Halliden, one of four brothers who became priests, three of them Columbans, who taught us Church history, chant and French in Dalgan Park before he went to Chile in the mid-1960s, telling us how one scene in this movie really hit him. Fr Flanagan said that he was going to pray – and then picked up his breviary. Fr Halliden, like many other priests, had seen the breviary more as an obligation rather than as prayer. By the same token, they were faithful to their obligation.
If a priest today dealt with a teenage boy as Fr Flanagan did with Marshey when they first met, he’d probably find himself in court and forbidden to exercise his ministry.