Today’s society can learn from Boys Town priest

Modern society has lessons to learn in caring for vulnerable children from the Irish priest behind the pioneering Boys Town facility in the US, according to supporters of his cause for sainthood, as his canonisation process moved a step forward.

Fr Edward Flanagan, a Roscommon priest who adopted a progressive approach to running institutions for juveniles in the US, was attacked by the Irish Government in 1946 after he labelled State-funded Church-run industrial schools as “a scandal, unChristlike and wrong”.

Bishop Kevin Doran, who represented the Diocese of Elphin at a Mass in Omaha, Nebraska last week to mark the end of the diocesan investigation into Fr Flanagan’s sainthood, told The Irish Catholic that “thousands of young people have been rescued from a futile existence as a result of the vision and sheer tenacity of Fr Flanagan”.

“The perceived wisdom at the time was that troublesome kids should be locked away and Fr Flanagan’s position was that it was the environment that was bad and not the kids,” he said.

“Sometimes it’s the easy solution to come down with a heavy hand and what we are probably least able to do in today’s cultural context is to give young people our time. We can give them technology and medical treatments but not personal attention, whereas the focus of Boys Town is to provide young people with a situation as near as possible to a family home.”

“He was a great visionary and what he said almost 100 years ago is totally relevant today,” said Dermot Layden, chairperson of the Sligo Fr Flanagan Committee. “There is a lot to be learned from how Boys Town deals with young vulnerable people. While some parts of our Health Service in Ireland have liaised somewhat with them in the past, the time has now come for us to engage much more with the Girls and Boys Town approach.”

Fr Flanagan was declared a ‘Servant of God’ in 2012. Four large boxes of documentation have now been sent to the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in Rome for consideration.