The Omaha Archdiocese in Nebraska closed the diocesan phase of the investigation with a June 18 Mass at St Cecilia's Cathedral.

The notary for the diocesan tribunal investigating the cause said he was struck by stories from former Boys Town residents who knew Fr Flanagan.

"I have had World War II veterans weep in front of me as they recall what Fr Flanagan did for them when they were just boys," said Omar Gutierrez.

Fr Flanagan helped at least 10,000 boys at Boys Town in his lifetime, and his influence extended around the world.

The priest's work inspired 80 other Boys Towns around the world.

The original Boys Town now serves about 80,000 children and families each year.

Steven Wolf, president of the Father Flanagan League Society of Devotion and vice-postulator of his cause, said he thinks there is abundant evidence of the priest's heroic virtue.

"He completely poured his life into saving these kids nobody else wanted to deal with," Mr Wolf said.

Fr Flanagan integrated young boys, "built a society around them, and put love, God's love, in the middle of their circumstances and helped them to become whole and complete people".

After World War II, the priest helped care for orphans and displaced children in war-ravaged Japan, Germany and Austria, at the request of US President Harry Truman.

Mr Wolf noted that the priest broke with the segregationist practices of his time, serving all boys, regardless of their race and religion.

Fr Flanagan's response to racist criticism was to ask what colour a person's soul was.

Spencer Tracy won an Oscar for his portrayal of Fr Flanagan in the 1938 movie Boys Town.

Sources

• Catholic News Agency
• Crux
• Image: Communio blog

He told the 45 graduates in carpentry, cabinet-making and automotive that the life story of Thomas Edison, inventor of batteries, electric lights and power, set a challenge for everyone to do better in life.

"Thomas Edison was enrolled into school but his teacher told his mum that he was slow and could not learn well like the other students," Archbishop Chong said.

"So his mother took him home and taught him like any other teacher and Thomas started playing with wires in his room and that is how his invention started.

"Parents too are teachers and it is important that we support our children in achieving their dreams," he said.

Source

• Fiji Times
• Image: FijiSun Aqela Susu

Father Silva was still a seminarian in 1956 when he came to the aid of 15 boys who had been orphaned or abandoned and found refuge for them in his mother's house.

"Change was the fundamental element of our teaching," he told the newspaper Diario de Navarra in 2009. "The idea was to change a world that we were dissatisfied with. We said, ‘Another world is possible.' "

The self-sufficiency and self-rule of the original Boys Town in Nebraska, which evolved from an orphanage founded by the Rev. Edward J. Flanagan in 1917, provided a model. At the Spanish charity's property, Benposta, Father Silva built residences and schools to train the boys, as young as 4 and as old as 20, in a trade or profession.

Adults were assigned a supporting role. The children governed the town, electing their own mayor and cabinet, and voting on decisions in a two-house legislature. By the 1970s, about 2,000 children lived in the town.

The town had its own police force and municipal officials, as well as a bakery, grocery store and printing press. It even had its own currency.

More than 50,000 boys passed through Benposta, which served as a model for similar projects in Belgium, Colombia, Venezuela, Nicaragua, Mozambique and the Dominican Republic.

Jesús César Silva Mendéz was born on Jan. 25, 1933, in Ourense. After graduating from Cardinal Cisneros College in Ourense, where he studied painting and drawing, he earned degrees in philosophy and theology from the Pontifical University, a Jesuit institution in Comillas. He was ordained in 1957.

The Spanish Boys Town, also known as Boys Nation since the 1960s, came into conflict with Galicia's regional government, which wanted to build a football stadium on its property. It closed in 2003.

Full Story : New York Times

Image: New York Times