IRELAND/UNITED STATES
Irish Central
Patrick Counihan @irishcentral September 27,2014
The Irish priest who founded the Boys Town orphanage in Nebraska, inspired a hit movie, and went to war with the Irish government and church in the 1940s over its treatment of children is on a ‘lightening speed’ course to become a saint.
Fr Edward Flanagan warned the Catholic Church of the potential for clerical abuse in state run institutions in Ireland as early as 1946.
He was denounced by the Dublin government and church leaders the Government in 1946 after he labelled State-funded Church-run industrial schools as ‘a scandal, unChristlike and wrong.’
Fr Flanagan went back to America where his pioneering work at the Boys Town orphanage in Omaha, inspiration for the movie starring Mickey Rooney, proved revolutionary.
Now the Irish Catholic newspaper reports that the Roscommon-born priest is being actively considered for sainthood by the Church which once dismissed his views.
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