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Death of Fr. Edward J. Flanagan, Founder of Boys Town

Edward Joseph Flanagan, Irish-born priest of the Catholic Church in the United States, dies in Berlin, Germany on May 15, 1948. He founds the orphanage known as Boys Town located in Boys Town, Douglas County, Nebraska, which now also serves as a center for troubled youth.

Flanagan is born to John and Honoria Flanagan in the townland of Leabeg, County Roscommon, near the village of Ballymoe, County Galway, on July 13, 1886. He attends Summerhill College, Sligo.

In 1904, Flanagan emigrates to the United States and becomes a US citizen in 1919. He attends Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Maryland, where he receives a Bachelor of Arts degree in 1906 and a Master of Arts degree in 1908. He studies at Saint Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, Yonkers, New York. He continues his studies in Italy and at the University of Innsbruck in Austria where he is ordained a priest on July 26, 1912. His first parish is in O’Neill, Nebraska, where from 1912 he serves as an assistant pastor at St. Patrick’s Catholic Church. He then moves to Omaha, Nebraska, to serve as an assistant pastor at St. Patrick’s Church and later at St. Philomena’s Church.

In 1917, Flanagan founds a home for homeless boys in Omaha. Bishop Jeremiah James Harty of the Diocese of Omaha has misgivings, but endorses Flanagan’s experiment. Because the downtown facilities are inadequate, he establishes Boys Town, ten miles west of Omaha in 1921. Under his direction, Boys Town grows to be a large community with its own boy-mayor, schools, chapel, post office, cottages, gymnasium, and other facilities where boys between the ages of 10 and 16 can receive an education and learn a trade.

Boys Town, a 1938 film starring Spencer Tracy based on Flanagan’s life, wins Tracy an Academy Award for Best Actor for his performance. Mickey Rooney also stars as one of the residents. Tracy spends his entire Oscar acceptance speech talking about Flanagan. Without confirming it with Tracy, an overzealous MGM publicity representative announces incorrectly that Tracy is donating his Oscar to Flanagan. The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences hastily strikes another inscription so Tracy keeps his statuette and Boys Town gets one as well. A sequel also starring Tracy and Rooney, Men of Boys Town, is released in 1941.

Flanagan himself appears in a separate 1938 MGM short, The City of Little Men, promoting Boys Town and giving a tour of its facilities. The actor Stephen McNally plays Flanagan in a 1957 episode of the ABC religion anthology series, Crossroads.

Flanagan receives many awards for his work with the delinquent and homeless boys. Pope Pius XI names him a Domestic Prelate with the title Right Reverend Monsignor in 1937. He serves on several committees and boards dealing with the welfare of children and is the author of articles on child welfare. Internationally known, he travels to the Republic of Ireland in 1946, where he is appalled by the children’s institutions there, calling them “a national disgrace.” When his observations are published after returning to Omaha, instead of improving the horrid conditions, vicious attacks are leveled against him in the Irish print media and the Oireachtas. He is invited by General Douglas MacArthur to Japan and Korea in 1947 to advise on child welfare, as well as to Austria and Germany in 1948. While in Germany, he dies of a heart attack on May 15, 1948. He is interred at Dowd Memorial Chapel of the Immaculate Conception Parish in Boys Town, Nebraska.

In 1986, the United States Postal Service issues a 4¢ Great Americans series postage stamp honoring Flanagan. He is a member of the Nebraska Hall of Fame.

On February 25, 2012, the Catholic Archdiocese of Omaha, Nebraska opens the canonization process of Flanagan. At a March 17, 2012 prayer service at Boys Town’s Immaculate Conception Church, he is given the title “Servant of God,” the first of three titles bestowed before canonization as a Catholic saint. The investigation is completed in June 2015 and the results forwarded to the Vatican. If the Vatican approves the local findings, Flanagan will be declared venerable. The next steps will be beatification and canonization.

There is a portrait statue dedicated to Fr. Edward J. Flanagan in Ballymoe, County Galway.


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Birth of Richard Downey, Archbishop of Liverpool

Richard Downey, English prelate of the Roman Catholic Church, is born in Kilkenny, County Kilkenny on May 5, 1881. He serves as Archbishop of Liverpool from 1928 until his death.

Downey is ordained to the priesthood on May 25, 1907 at St. Joseph Seminary, Up Holland, Skelmersdale, Lancashire. He is Professor of Philosophy at Sacred Heart College, Hammersmith, and then Professor of Dogmatic Theology at St. Joseph’s College, Up Holland, where he is also Vice-Rector. On August 3, 1928, he is appointed Archbishop of Liverpool by Pope Pius XI, succeeding the late Frederick William Keating. He receives his Episcopal consecration on the following September 21 from Cardinal Francis Bourne, with Bishops Robert Dobson and Francis Vaughan serving as co-consecrators.

Downey’s tenure sees the construction and dedication of the crypt of Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, built to a design by Sir Edwin Lutyens, although the Cathedral itself is never completed as he had envisaged. A picture of Lutyens proposed cathedral is printed on postcards sold to raise funds.

In 1929, before the actual construction begins, Downey states, “Hitherto all cathedrals have been dedicated to saints. I hope this one will be dedicated to Christ himself with a great figure surmounted on the cathedral, visible for many a mile out at sea.” He also declares that while the Cathedral will not be medieval and Gothic, neither will it be as modern as the works of Jacob Epstein, a statement somewhat at odds with the design that is finally realised after his death.

In 1933, after the urn containing the bones of King Edward V and Richard of Shrewsbury, Duke of York is removed from Westminster Abbey for examination and then returned with an Anglican burial service, Downey says, “It is difficult to see what moral justification there can be for reading a Protestant service over the remains of these Roman Catholic princes, even though it were done on the plea of legal continuity of the present Anglican Church with the pre-Reformation Church of Britain.”

Downey dies in Liverpool at the age of 72 on June 16, 1953, having served as Liverpool’s archbishop for twenty-four years. His remains are interred in a crypt at Liverpool Metropolitan Cathedral, Liverpool.


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Birth of St. Columba

St. Columba, also called Colum or Columcille, Irish abbot and missionary Evangelist is born on December 7, 521, in Tír Chonaill (mainly modern County Donegal) in the north of Ireland. He is credited with spreading Christianity in what is today Scotland at the start of the Hiberno-Scottish mission. He also founds the important abbey on Iona, which becomes a dominant religious and political institution in the region for centuries. He is the Patron Saint of Derry and is highly regarded by both the Gaels of Dál Riata and the Picts. Today he is remembered as a Catholic saint and one of the Twelve Apostles of Ireland.

Columba studies under Saints Finnian of Movilla and Finnian of Clonard and is ordained into the priesthood around 551. He founds churches and the famous monasteries Daire Calgaich, in Derry, and Dair-magh, in Durrow.

Columba and his twelve disciples erect a church and monastery on the island of Iona (c. 563) as their springboard for the conversion of Scotland. It is regarded as the mother house and its abbots as the chief ecclesiastical rulers even of the bishops. Columba gives formal benediction and inauguration to Áedán mac Gabráin of Dunadd as king of Dál Riata.

Columba accompanies Aidan to Ireland in 575 and takes a leading role in a council held at Druim Cetta, which determines the position of the ruler of Dál Riata in relation to the king of Ireland. The last years of Columba’s life are apparently primarily spent in Iona, where he is already revered as a saint. He and his associates and successors spread the gospel more than any other contemporary group of religious pioneers in Britain.

Columba dies on Iona and is buried in 597 by his monks in the abbey he created. In 794 the Vikings descend on Iona. Columba’s relics are finally removed in 849 and divided between Scotland and Ireland. The parts of the relics which go to Ireland are reputed to be buried in Downpatrick, County Down, with St. Patrick and St. Brigid or at Saul Church neighbouring Downpatrick.

Three Latin hymns may be attributed to Columba with some degree of certainty. Excavations in 1958 and 1959 revealed Columba’s living cell and the outline of the original monastery.

St. Columba’s Feast Day, 9 June, has been designated as International Celtic Art Day. The Book of Kells and the Book of Durrow, great medieval masterpieces of Celtic art, are associated with Columba.


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St. Columba Encounters Monster in Loch Ness

columba-and-loch-ness-monsterSt. Columba is said to have encountered the Loch Ness Monster on August 22, 565.

Columba is trained by Irish monks. However, his youthful Christianity is skin-deep while his passions are strong. He is partly responsible for the battle of Cul-drebene in which many men lose their lives. Repentant, he sails to Britain as “a pilgrim for Christ” and founds the monastery of Iona, from which Christianity spreads across North Britain. He himself travels and preaches, establishing several churches and monasteries.

Revered as a saint, his life is written by Adomnán. In reporting Columba’s life, Adomnán gives what appears to be the first written account of the Loch Ness Monster.

Traveling in Scotland, Columba has to cross the Loch Ness. On its banks, he sees some of the Picts burying a man who had been bitten by a water monster while swimming. The body had been pulled from the loch with the aid of a hook by rescuers who had come to his assistance in a boat.

Despite the danger, Columba orders one of his followers to swim across the loch and bring back a boat that is moored on the other side. This man’s name was Lugne Mocumin. Without hesitation, Lugne strips for the swim and plunges in.

The monster, robbed of its earlier feast, surfaces and darts at Lugne with a roar, its jaws open. Everyone on the bank is stupefied with terror, everyone except Columba, that is. A firm believer in the authority of the crucified Christ, he raises his hand, making the sign of the cross. Invoking the name of God, he commands the beast, saying, “You will go no further, and won’t touch the man; go back at once.”

At the voice of the saint, the monster flees as if terrified, “more quickly than if it had been pulled back with ropes,” says Adomnán. The heathen are amazed. Everyone who witnesses the sight gives glory to the God of the Christians.

The authenticity of this event remains in doubt. To begin with, Adomnán’s account is written over a hundred years after the alleged events. Furthermore, different versions of the story disagree with one another. One has Columba raising the monster’s first victim from the dead by laying his staff across his chest.

This is only one of many extraordinary events in Adomnán’s account. According to him, Columba drips with prophecies and predictions that come true. He makes water into wine like Jesus, draws water from a rock like Moses, calms a storm at sea, provides a miraculous draught of fishes, multiplies a herd of cattle, drives a demon out of a milk pail, and cures the sick. A book owned by Columba could not be destroyed by water. Through his prayers he kills a wild boar, stops serpents from harming the inhabitants of a certain island. Angels and manifestations of divine light attend him throughout his life. Adomnán’s account has so many incredible tales that it is unbelievable.

(From “Columba Encountered Loch Ness Monster” by Dan Graves, MSL published on Christianity.com)


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Death of Honora “Nano” Nagle, Sister John of God

honora-nano-nagleHonora “Nano” Nagle, Sister John of God and founder of the Sisters of the Presentation the Blessed Virgin Mary, dies of tuberculosis on April 26, 1784. Her recognition as one of the greatest women of Ireland derives from dedication to the poor and oppressed. Her mission between the cutting edge of the gospel and the miseries of her day inspires the Presentation Sisters to minister in joyful service, responding to current needs throughout the world in faithfulness to the gospel.

Born to a wealthy family in Ballygriffin, just north of Killavullen, County Cork in 1718, Nagle’s parents send her to France to be educated since strict penal laws bar Catholic children from attending school in Ireland. She returns to Ireland after her father’s death in 1746. Her mother dies soon afterwards. Prayer and reflection lead Nagle back to France to become a sister.

Even as she begins her new life as a sister, Nagle’s thoughts often return to the children of the poor families back in Ireland.

At age 32, Nagle leaves the convent in France and returns to Ireland, where she secretly gathers the children of the poor and teaches them catechism, reading, writing and mathematics. As she spends her days with the children, they tell her of their sick friends or family members. She begins to visit the sick and the elderly after school, bringing them food, medicine and comfort.

Nagle often makes visits late into the night, carrying her lamp among the alleyways. Before long, she becomes known as the Lady of the Lantern.

Nagle decides to open a convent where women can share the mission of Jesus through prayer, teaching and care for the sick and needy. She and three companions open the first Presentation Convent on Cove Lane (now Douglas Street) in Cork, County Cork on Christmas Day in 1775. There she receives the habit on June 29, 1776, taking the name of Mother Mary of St. John of God. The sisters make their first annual vows on June 24, 1777.

Honora “Nano” Nagle dies from tuberculosis at the age of 65 on April 26, 1784. She leaves her compelling vision of service to a growing community of Presentation Sisters. Her final words are emblematic of her timeless legacy, and they remain a guiding principle for the Sisters: “Love one another as you have hitherto done.”

Nagle is recognized as a woman of faith, hope and heroic virtue by the Roman Catholic Church and is declared Venerable on October 31, 2013 by Pope Francis. Once evidence of an authentic miracle is attributed to her intercession with God, she acquires the title Blessed. Another miracle initiates canonization and public recognition of Nagle as a Saint.