Father Flanagan’s road to sainthood (copy) (copy) (copy)
When Father Edward Flanagan founded Boys Town in 1917 to give homeless and troubled young people a loving family and home, he welcomed boys of all races, colors, and creeds. That groundbreaking work and approach have put him on the road to sainthood, with the Vatican recently declaring him Venerable.
If you’re a classic movie fan, you will remember the 1938 hit “Boys Town,” starring Spencer Tracy as Father Flanagan, which spread the priest’s message to a whole new audience. During a “Christopher Closeup” interview, Boys Town historian Tom Lynch noted, “He was an Irish Catholic priest in Omaha, Nebraska who created a home with a borrowed $90. Twenty-five years later, he’s sitting in the White House with the President of the United States, [who said], ‘We need 49 more Father Flanagans, one for every state and territory.’”
“[Father] worked with the press,” Tom continued. “He would be on the radio [and] developed his own program called Links of Love, uniting America with the idea of taking care of these children...That movie, [Boys Town], broke box office records because it presented a community where children were living together of all different races and religions as one family, because [Father] intentionally created one of the first integrated communities in America.”
Boys Town continued to grow and thrive, even after Father Flanagan’s death in 1948. In 1999, Ken Suddeth, a Korean War orphan who had been raised in Boys Town, set forth the idea to a group of alumni to have Father Flanagan declared a saint. The archbishop explained that the group first needed to “pray, pray, pray” for this and demonstrate “a groundswell of devotion” for Father Flanagan.
Steve Wolf, one of those alumni who went on to become president of the Father Flanagan League, recalled, “We started a prayer group that, at that time, met once a month in Father’s tomb—today it meets every Tuesday—and it took off from there. Next thing you know, we find out that he has devotees all over the world. We’ve got connections with people from over 20 countries. We’ve distributed hundreds of thousands of prayer cards…We were able to go back to the bishop several years later and show him all the evidence that we had…At that time, it was Archbishop George Lucas, who said, ‘I think there’s definitely the Holy Spirit working among you all. I will open the cause.’ That happened in 2012…Then the case moved on to Rome in 2015. So here we are, basically 11 years later, with Venerable Edward J. Flanagan.”
The next stage in the process involves people praying for Father Flanagan to intercede for them and work the two miracles required for sainthood. Steve and Tom believe that the Christopher Award-winning documentary “Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story,” the Father Flanagan League website (FatherFlanagan.org), and Boys Town itself will all further direct people to the priest to serve as a role model and spiritual intercessor.
Steve concluded, “We always see signs from the Holy Spirit that God is in this cause and with us. And when I say with us, with all of us, all His creation. I think He certainly is helping us to hold Venerable Flanagan up to the world as an icon of how to work with kids and the most vulnerable in our society—and how to recognize that the person in front of you is made in the likeness and image of God and is worthy of respect and dignity and love.”
For free copies of the Christopher News Note The Greatest Among You Will Be Your Servant, write: The Christophers, 264 West 40th Street, Room 603, New York, NY 10018; or e-mail: mail@christophers.org.
