Pope Leo XIV on Monday approved the advancement of the beatification cause for Boys Town founder Father Edward J. Flanagan, declaring him “Venerable.”
The Irish-born priest, revered for his revolutionary approach to caring for homeless and impoverished children in the 20th century, famously said there was “no such thing as a bad boy, only bad environment, bad modeling, and bad teaching.”
His life and legacy were immortalized in the 1938 movie “Boys Town,” starring Spencer Tracy, who won an Oscar for his portrayal of the priest.
Thanks to his ministry to young boys in Omaha, Nebraska, Flanagan was invited to review the child welfare conditions in Japan and Korea in 1947, and the following year in Austria and Germany.
While in Germany, Flanagan had a heart attack and died on May 15, 1948. His body rests at Dowd Memorial Chapel of the Immaculate Conception in Boys Town, Nebraska.
The pope declared the “heroic virtue” of Flanagan alongside four other holy men and women on March 23.
He also authorized the beatification of Italian Cardinal Ludovico Altieri, who died ministering to cholera patients during an epidemic in 1867.
Altieri was found to have made an “offering of life,” a legal path to sainthood created by Pope Francis in 2017.
The other sainthood causes advanced Monday are French diocesan priest Henri Caffarel (1903-1996), founder of Équipes Notre-Dame; Visionary and Polish Sister Barbara Stanisława Samulowska, who served for five decades as a missionary in Guatemala (1865-1950); Spanish Sister Maria Dolores Romero Algarín (Mother Belén) (1916-1977); and Italian husband and father of 12 Giuseppe Castagnetti (1909-1965).
