In the 1920s and 1930s, Flanagan “stood up against the sectarianism of many in the establishment, and the racist ideology of the Ku Klux Klan, and insisted on welcome young people of all races and religions in Boys Town, on the basis of their need”, he said. “During the second World War, when Japanese workers and their families in the United States were all interned as ‘hostile aliens’, Fr Flanagan arranged for many of them to be set free to come and live in Boys Town, where he provided them with a home and with employment.” Doran said Flanagan’s life and virtue “have much to say to us today, in a wealthy country where so many children are forced to live with homelessness, and in a world in which we still find it so easy to define people as ‘hostile aliens’.”
Author: Jack White
Published at: 2026-03-23 23:23:44
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