When Pope Leo XIV granted Father Edward Flanagan the title “Venerable” on March 23, 2026, an American pope recognized an American “Servant of God” for distinctly American virtues.
Father Flanagan brought a distinctly American can-do spirit to child welfare. He worked with both Church and public institutions to create a new approach to education based on student self-government that offered castoff children dignity and responsibility, and an experience of faith and love.
Of course an earlier saint had pioneered parochial education in a way that cleared the way for him: St. Elizabeth Ann Seton.
Fr. Flanagan’s journey from the Irish bogs to Boys Town passed through Emmitsburg.
Edward Flanagan became the highly respected figure who was the basis for the smash 1938 Hollywood hit Boys Town, which told the story of the farm home for vagrant boys that he incorporated into its own township. His story has inspired fascination ever since, most recently with 2025’s “Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story,” an EWTN documentary narrated by Jonathan Roumie, who plays Jesus in The Chosen.
But as the documentary points out, Flanagan almost died the day he was born, July 26, 1886. Edward was the eighth of 11 children born to a father who worked as a rancher for a cattle-owner near Ballyhoe, Ireland, on land known for its bogs. All the Flanagans — parents, children, and grandpa — lived together in a small thatched-roof home, and when Edward was born prematurely, a midwife whispered that he wouldn’t make it through the night. His grandfather said he wouldn’t let that happen, wrapped the boy in his sweater and held him by the fire through his first night. This incubator of love worked and the baby rallied, though he faced respiratory issues his whole life.
When he was 18, he left Ireland’s poverty for America, following the example of other siblings who had gone before him. Intending to become a priest, he received his BA and MA degrees from Mount St. Mary’s University in Emmitsburg, Md. — a few miles from where Elizabeth Ann Seton was buried.
Bouts of pneumonia interrupted his studies and bounced him from St. Joseph’s Seminary in Dunwoodie, N.Y., to Omaha, Neb., and finally to Innsbruck, Austria, where he was told the air would be good for his lungs. There, he finished his seminary studies and was ordained.
His first priestly assignment was a thoroughly Irish one.
Back in his new Omaha home, Father Flanagan began his priestly ministry as an assistant pastor of St. Patrick’s Catholic Church in O’Neill, Neb., an Irish settlement 200 miles northwest of Omaha.
There, he discovered he had a talent for humanitarian work. First, he served the survivors of a 1913 tornado disaster, then he established a homeless shelter for migrant laborers. But facing the addictions and dissolution of the homeless men — and the boys who sometimes resorted to his shelter — he became convinced that serving delinquent boys would be his most effective way of addressing problems that became intractable later.
Omaha Archbishop Jeremiah James Harty gave Flanagan reluctant approval for his first shelter for boys — thinking, perhaps, that the idea would die on its own. It didn’t. He started “The City of Little Men” within Omaha city limits on Dec. 12, 1917, with five boys. By June of 1918 he had 32 boys, and on the first anniversary of the apostolate, he had 100, soon to be 150.
But it was hard going to get permissions from townspeople to house delinquent boys in their neighborhoods — and Jim Crow era laws threatened to shut down Flanagan’s racially integrated approach as illegal.
By 1921, he had found an adequate place to house his quickly growing community: Overlook Farm, 10 miles outside of Omaha. He secured teachers and facilities, and formalized “The Incorporated Village of Boys Town.”
His apostolate was remarkable.
Boys Town would grow into a community of hundreds of boys aged 10–16, where they served as mayor, custodial staff, maintenance workers, cooks and merchants. They received academic instruction from the Notre Dame Sisters, fielded competitive athletic teams, and were formed in trade skills from their work in the town. Boys who were talented in music or acting performed shows to raise money and awareness.
Flanagan used the media of his day — newspapers and radio — to spread the story and raise funds. When a news article appeared in a Los Angeles newspaper, the story was irresistible to Hollywood. Spencer Tracy won an Oscar for portraying Father Flanagan and Mickey Rooney’s star power skyrocketed in the MGM film.
But the stories of the actual boys touched by the real Boys Town were even more heartwarming. At his hometown in Ballymoe, Ireland, Flanagan promoter Fidelma Croghan says that she receives constant testimonials about Father Flanagan. One woman came to her in tears, saying, “Father Flanagan saved my father! I wouldn’t be here” without him. Another visitor told her, “I would have been dead as a young man, or would have spent my life in jail,” without Boys Town.
Father Flanagan had to do everything on his own to get the new apostolate started.
The priest served his apostolate tirelessly, tending to fundraising, administration, teaching, and discipline at Boys Town. He also wrote and spoke constantly on his approach to childhood welfare, a philosophy he summed up by saying: “There are no bad boys.”
“A boy given the proper guidance and direction — kept busy and constructively occupied during his leisure or free time — will prove my statement that there is no such thing as a bad boy,” he said. “It costs so little to teach a child to love, and so much to teach him to hate.”
During World War II, Flanagan was recognized as America’s No. 1 War Dad, because of the sheer number of “sons” who named him as their next of kin when they went to war. After the war was won, he was tapped by the United States to travel to postwar Japan and Korea to consult about child welfare. In 1947, he did the same thing in Germany, but died of a heart attack.
He became an icon of faith and American imagination and resilience — like Mother Seton.
It is said that Father Flanagan, who was born prematurely, died prematurely at age 61 because of his constant work in service to God and neighbor through education.
Of course St. Elizabeth Ann Seton, who died at age 46 in 1821, is described the same way. Just reading an account of her service to her students is exhausting:
“I have been constantly busy with my Darlings mending, hemming, and turning winter clothes. They have in turn all been sick from the change of the weather, added to their whooping cough … in short, dear, I have been one of Job’s sisters, and from all appearances must long look to his example. Well, I am satisfied to sow in tears if I may reap in joy.”
But by bringing the best “can-do” American spirit to apostolic work, Mother Seton’s bonneted profile has become an icon of American Catholic education. So has Father Flanagan’s bespectacled face and clerical collar. His bust is in the Nebraska Hall of Fame, and his image has graced the 4-cent stamp.
But of course, they both found their ultimate success not in their schools, but in the object of their schools: The homeland of heaven.
TOM HOOPES, autor más reciente de El Rosario de San Juan Pablo II, es escritor residente en el Benedictine College de Kansas, donde imparte clases. Es anfitrión de La extraordinaria Story podcast sobre la vida de Cristo. Su libro Lo que dijo realmente el Papa Francisco ya está disponible en Audible. Antiguo reportero en la zona de Washington, D.C., fue secretario de prensa del Presidente del Comité de Medios y Arbitrios de la Cámara de Representantes de los Estados Unidos y pasó 10 años como editor del periódico National Catholic Register y de la revista Faith & Family. Su trabajo aparece con frecuencia en el Register, Aleteia y Catholic Digest. Vive en Atchison, Kansas, con su esposa, April, y tiene nueve hijos.
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