Father Flanagan supporters thankful for many reasons

A Mass of Thanksgiving for Venerable Edward J. Flanagan was offered Sept. 13 at Boys Town – and thankfulness abounded.

It was a day of joy and thanksgiving for everyone, including the leader of the archdiocese, Archbishop Michael G. McGovern. He presided at the 4:30 p.m. Mass at Dowd Memorial Chapel of the Immaculate Conception, giving “thanks to God for the great news that our Holy Father, Pope Leo, has recognized the virtues” of the now Venerable Father Flanagan.

“As we gather here and reflect upon Father’s heroic virtues throughout his life, we thank God for the way that he lived, the way that he loved, the way that he served,” the archbishop said in his homily.

A Mass of Thanksgiving was appropriate for Father Flanagan, he said, who lived a life of thanksgiving.

About 600 supporters filled the church to capacity for the historic event for both the local and universal Church. Many more watched a livestream of the Mass, which was viewed as far away as Father Flanagan’s native Ireland.

The Mass was concelebrated by two former leaders of the archdiocese, Archbishops Emeritus George J. Lucas and Elden Francis Curtiss, as well as many archdiocesan priests.

Boys Town residents – part of Father Flanagan’s legacy – worshiped at the the Mass and served as lectors, ushers and choir members. Members of his family – five great-nephews and one great-neice, and some of their families – were there, as well as supporters from the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion, which has helped promote Father Flanagan’s sainthood cause.

The Omaha priest who founded Boys Town, lived from 1886 to 1948, and pioneered care for troubled youths. Father Flanagan recognized their inherent dignity, no matter their race or creed, creating a home for them that has since been copied around the world.

He famously said, “There are no bad boys. There’s only bad environment, bad training, bad example and bad thinking.”

And also: “Rehabilitation needs greater emphasis, punishment, less.”

People in the Boys Town community “like to say that this whole sainthood process is confirming a lot of things we already knew,” said Father Jeff Mollner, Boys Town’s national director of mission and spirituality. “We’ve seen Father Flanagan’s legacy in the lives of the youth that come here and in our alumni.”

“We’re grateful,” he said of celebrating the Mass of Thanksgiving, “that people can come and share in our joy.”

Father Mollner, who’s also a priest of the Archdiocese of Omaha, said he’s thankful that Father Flanagan’s canonization process officially took a significant step forward with Pope Leo XIV’s decree on March 23. But he’s also grateful “to see one of our own,” an archdiocesan priest, “get this great honor,” to be held up as an example for the priests as “a life that we can emulate.”

Father Jeff Mollner, Boys Town’s national director of mission and spirituality, proclaims the Gospel at the Mass of Thanksgiving for Venerable Edward J. Flanagan on Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. BOYS TOWN

“Our prayers have been answered,” Colleen Gawley said about Father Flanagan’s advancement in the sainthood process. She is a member of St. Patrick Parish in Elkhorn who is actively involved in the Father Flanagan League.

She and others with the League pray every Tuesday at the tomb of Father Flanagan, located at the chapel. They seek his intervention for people desperately in need of prayers, hoping for miracles that would advance his sainthood cause.

The tomb of Venerable Edward Flanagan is located at Dowd Memorial Chapel of the Immaculate Conception. BOYS TOWN

Gawley said she was grateful that the Mass was held at the chapel, where Father Flanagan offered Mass, and on the Boys Town campus, where he “walked and lived.”

Father Flanagan League members like Gawley will continue to pray for the priest’s intercession, hoping for the next step, a healing that would lead to his beatification.

Archbishop McGovern invites others to pray as well.

The title of Venerable by the Holy Father is a recognition that the Servant of God led a heroic life of Christian virtues. The next step in Venerable Father Flanagan’s cause would be beatification, during which he would receive the title “Blessed.” Beatification requires at least one verified miracle attributed to his intercession. Canonization, or being declared a saint, requires an additional verified miracle attributed to the candidate’s intercession occurring after beatification.

Born in Ireland, Father Flanagan spent his childhood there before immigrating to the United States in 1904 with other members of his large family.

Eight years later he was ordained a priest and assigned to the then-Diocese of Omaha.

Father Edward J. Flanagan

Father Flanagan’s time in the seminary was interrupted with bouts of illness. “But he persevered,” the archbishop said, “until he was ordained a priest” serving in Omaha and O’Neill.

When Father Flanagan worked with men who were down and out in Omaha during the early 1900s, he had an insight: that if they had been helped earlier in life, their lives could be different, their suffering could have been prevented.

He served as St. John Bosco had in Italy, using a “preventative method,” reaching people before their problems could become more complicated, Archbishop McGovern said in an earlier interview. In Omaha that meant giving homeless and wayward boys “a place where they would be safe, secure and able to receive an education.”

In reaching out to those boys, Father Flanagan took risks, the archbishop said at the Mass.

Father Edward Flanagan in 1936 | Courtesy of Boys Town

Father Flanagan’s courage is motivation for people today, “to give of ourselves without counting the cost, to take risks, to try something new, as Father Flanagan did in his outreach to youth.”

He listened to people and responded, Archbishop McGovern said, “with support, with care, with concern.”

And he taught the children in his care to love. He said, “It costs so little to teach a child to love and so much to teach him to hate.”

“How many young people – with the difficulties of their lives before they came to Boys Town – easily could have become bitter, resentful, hardhearted, hateful,” the archbishop said. “And yet because of the love and the care that they received at Boys Town, there was a new beginning in life. Hearts changed, hearts grew and expanded.”

Archbishop McGovern has called Father Flanagan “a man of the Gospel.”

In the earlier interview, he said: “The Gospel becomes three dimensional in Father Flanagan’s life,” through his ministry as a priest and in helping those who were marginalized and vulnerable.

Father Flanagan’s chalice, which he received in 1912, was used at the Mass of Thanksgiving. Day after day, the archbishop said, the Boys Town founder used the chalice at Holy Mass, saying, “This is My Body, This is My Blood, given up for you.”

The holy priest also gave of himself “with his own body and blood, strengthened by the Holy Eucharist,” Archbishop McGovern said.

At the end of Mass, the archbishop read the papal decree from Rome which recognized Father Flanagan’s heroic virtues and gave him the title “Venerable.”

The worshipers were then invited to a reception in a tent set up next to the chapel. They were welcomed with food and drink and live Irish music. A video screen was set up behind the band, showing old photos and video clips from Father Flanagan’s life, from his earliest years in Ireland to his priestly ministry in the United States and his travels abroad.

Outside the tent, even the weather seemed Irish: damp, cool and cloudy. But inside the chapel at Mass and at the reception tent, it was bright and warm.

The day was a joyful one, Archbishop McGovern said, for Father Flanagan’s family, the Archdiocese of Omaha, the Church in Ireland and the universal Church, but especially for “all the people of Boys Town and the many, many friends of Father Flanagan.”

WATCH THE MASS OF THANKSGIVING

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