CNA Staff, Oct 5, 2024 / 06:00 am
In 1917, Father Edward J. Flanagan, a Catholic priest and immigrant from Ballymoe, Ireland, bought a home for boys on Dodge Street in Omaha, Nebraska.
Four years later, after quickly outgrowing the space and being pressured to leave, he moved the boys to Overlook Farm, a 160-acre piece of land that became what is known as Boys Town — the town Flanagan created for orphaned and abandoned youth in need regardless of race or religion.
The priest’s story has now been documented in a new film, “Heart of a Servant: The Father Flanagan Story.”
The documentary, narrated by Catholic actor Jonathan Roumie, who is also the executive producer of the film, includes expert commentary from Steve Wolf, vice postulator for the cause of Flanagan’s beatification and canonization, as well as Deacon Omar F.A. Gutierrez, Father Ryan Lewis, and Ed Flanagan, the great-nephew of Flanagan.
The film had its premiere on Sept. 13 in Boys Town and will be released for one night only in theaters across the country on Oct. 8.
CNA had the opportunity to visit Boys Town and attend the premiere where we spoke to Roumie as well as the filmmakers and some of the experts who appear in the film.
Roumie shared that he felt as though Flanagan personally called him to take part in this project.
“When I watched his story, I just felt compelled to get involved and to see how I could lend my help and my voice, literally, to the project,” he told CNA. “It was just so moving and so well done and I want people to know about this story that was so culturally shifting in his time and just as relevant today as it was when all of these things actually happened.”
Roumie added that while taking part in the film, it became clear that Flanagan’s “mission is timeless.”
“There will always be children in need that for whatever reason, often through no fault of their own, they’re burdened with circumstances in their lives that they didn’t contribute to but they’re on the receiving end [of], and it turns out to be a pretty tough break for them,” he said.
Roumie also pointed out that especially in today’s society, “kids are bombarded with all kinds of imagery that is … not healthy for them, that is damaging to them, and that has an effect on their physical, mental, [and spiritual] well-being.”
A majority of the boys Flanagan served were orphans and abandoned children during the Great Depression who took to the streets and committed crimes. To Flanagan though, there were no bad boys, only bad circumstances, and he worked to improve these circumstances.
Roumie emphasized this point, speaking to the importance of caring for children because “kids are the next generation.”
“They are the next generation of adults, of humans, of society, and so how a child develops fundamentally affects societies, is crucial to a functioning society, a healthy society. So if you treat children with love and mercy and compassion and show them the value of their lives, they will grow up to be adults [who] value those things and can change the world much in the same way that Father Flanagan did.”
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Roumie added: “Children will always need to be shaped and guided and completely flooded with God’s love in their lives through the people that they are most connected to.”
During his time at Boys Town for the premiere, Roumie was given a tour of the historic town and met many of the individuals working for Boys Town who themselves were boys in the system. He saw how Flanagan’s work changed children’s lives and gave them a “chance to be not just a productive or a functioning member of society but a flourishing member of society in ways that they can give back and affect so much change, because that’s what we’re called to do — we’re called to be beacons of light and hope and change to the most needy in our world — widows and orphans.”
Roumie called Flanagan’s work of pouring “love and compassion and mercy and faith and Jesus” into the lives of these children the “antidote” to their bad circumstances.
“He didn’t pick just Catholic kids because he was a Catholic priest. He welcomed everyone,” he explained. “He integrated children from different faiths and races at a time where it was scandalous to do so.”
“I think of him as this warrior revolutionary [who] went against the system, but he did it in a way that abided by the laws of the country in which he was now an immigrant. He did it in a way that I think only God could have accomplished.”
The actor said he hopes that viewers will take away that “they can have as much of an impact as Father Flanagan did through discernment and through listening to the voice of Christ within them.”
Roumie added that he hopes people will see that they “can affect the lives of children around them, within their own community, by simply just loving on kids that might seem like troubled kids or kids that might seem unruly,” he said.
“I think if we’re approaching them with the love of God and seeing them as Jesus would see them, I think you have the opportunity to change your child and the next generation of children’s lives for the better.”
