Fr Flanagan moves closer to sainthood following papal announcement

Iconic local priest, Father Edward Flanagan has moved closer to sainthood following an announcement by Pope Leo XIV this morning declaring the Ballymoe man Venerable.

Father Flanagan was born in Ballymoe, Co Galway, in the Diocese of Elphin, on 13 July 1886 and, following his primary education in Drimatemple National School, went to the College of the Immaculate Conception, Summerhill College, Sligo, to complete his secondary education. 

He subsequently emigrated to the United States, where he became a priest of the Diocese of Omaha.

He is best known for founding 'Boystown', which flourished to become a place where young people could feel at home, and have all the advantages of a solid education and formation for life. His story was immortalised in the 1938 film ‘Boys Town’.

Welcoming the news, Bishop of Achonry and of Elphin Kevin Doran said it was wonderful.

“Since 2017, Father Flanagan’s ‘heroic virtue’ ,the measure of his holiness, has been carefully considered by the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Causes of Saints, leading up to today’s announcement,” the bishop said. “His virtue shows clearly in many aspects of his life. One was the courage with which he pursued his vocation to the priesthood, in spite of difficulties with ill health. Another aspect of his holiness was his desire to help young people realise that they are loved by God. He expressed this in his own actions as a ‘father’, and in his statement that he never knew a child who wanted to be bad, ‘Kindness and love will open the heart of any problem boy’. On a visit to Ireland in 1946, he raised serious questions about the imprisonment of children and the conditions in which they were forced to live and work.” 

In the 1920s and 1930s, Father Flanagan stood up against the sectarianism of many in the establishment, and the racist ideology of the Ku Klux Clan. He insisted on welcoming young people of all races and religions to Boystown, on the basis of their need.

“During the Second World War, when Japanese workers and their families in the United States were all interned as ‘hostile aliens’, Father Flanagan arranged for many of them to be set free to come and live in Boystown, where he provided them with a home and with employment,” said Bishop Doran. “When the war was over, he devoted what remained of his live to visiting some of the countries which had been most impacted by violence, The Philippines, Japan and Germany, in order to support efforts to provide the best possible care for homeless children. It was during one such visit in Germany that he died of exhaustion.

“Father Flanagan’s life and virtue have much to say to us today, in a wealthy country where so many children are forced to live with homelessness, and in a world in which we still find it so easy to define people as ‘hostile aliens’.” 

In recent years, the Father Flanagan Memorial Centre has been developed by the parishioners in Ballymoe, it includes a memorial garden and a pilgrim centre. The website for the centre is www.fatherflanaganvisitorcentre.ie.

A one hour documentary movie on the life of Father Flanagan (Heart of a Servant) has been completed, and is scheduled for broadcast by RTÉ in the coming months.

“With the formal recognition of our own Father Flanagan as ‘Venerable’, I now invite people of faith, and especially those who work with young people, to take him as a model of Christian living and to pray for his Beatification,” Bishop Doran said. 

“This would normally follow the recognition of a Miracle, attributed to the intercession of Father Flanagan, I encourage people to pray through the intercession of Father Flanagan for healing for family members and friends who are sick, and to make contact with me, or with the Father Flanagan League of Devotion, if you believe that an unexplained healing has taken place. Father Flanagan Prayer Cards and Medals are available from the Memorial Centre in Ballymoe.”