Final farewells at the Cathedral of Saint Paul today for former Archbishop Harry Flynn, who died a week ago Sunday at the age of 86. Archbishop William Lori from Baltimore was among those honoring Flynn. “It’s not just that he remembered our names: He knew us. He loved us. He had this beautiful capacity for hospitality and friendship,” Lori said.
Cardinal Blaise Cupich from Chicago says what made Flynn a great bishop and a great example was that “he had that ability to see how God’s grace was working in the ordinary circumstances of people’s life, and gave a whole new definition to what it means to be a bishop as one who is an overseer — not to point out the mistakes that are so obvious in our lives, but the graces.”
Flynn presided over the Archdiocese of Saint Paul and Minneapolis from 1995 through 2008, a tumultuous time for the Catholic Church as many more cases of priest sex abuse came to light. In 2014, as part of a probe of clergy sex abuse, Archbishop Flynn was questioned about his handling of cases during his tenure.
Flynn died September 22nd after a battle with bone cancer. He’s laid to rest this afternoon at Resurrection Cemetery in Mendota Heights.