Retired Jackson Heights Pastor Dies; Was 82

A Mass of Christian Burial for Father Francis J. Flynn, the former pastor of St. Joan of Arc parish, Jackson Heights, was celebrated March 12 at American Martyrs Church, Bayside. He died Tuesday, March 6, at SS. Joachim and Anne Nursing Home, Coney Island. He was 82.

Retired Bishop Thomas V. Daily was the main celebrant. Msgr. George Zatarga preached the homily.

Father Flynn

A native of Brooklyn, he was baptized at St. Michael’s Church, Fourth Ave., Sunset Park, and attended St. Francis College, Brooklyn Heights, and Immaculate Conception Seminary, Huntington. He was ordained June 3, 1950 at St. James Pro-Cathedral by Bishop Thomas E. Molloy.

He served as an assistant at St. Michael’s, Flushing, 1950–64; St. Jude, Canarsie, 1964-65; and Immaculate Conception, Astoria, 1965-81.

In 1981, he was appointed as pastor of St. Joan of Arc, where he served until 1988. He also served as an assistant at St. Thomas Aquinas, Flatlands, before retiring in 1995.

When Msgr. Zatarga became Vicar for Senior Priests, he assumed the guardianship of Father Flynn, who was then in the early stages of Alzheimer’s disease. On his visits to Father Flynn he always found him to be “pleasant, a nice fellow and well liked.” He had a smile on his face and responded to visitors’ greetings by saying, “It’s a wonderful day.”

In his homily, Msgr. Zatarga said Father Flynn was “a priest who had suffered a great deal at the end, but gave a good witness.”

Father Flynn’s brother-in-law, Edward Kelly of New Hampshire, recalled that in his younger days Father Flynn had “a great love of fishing, animals and also classical music.” When he had the chance, he would go up to visit Ed and his wife, Margaret, and their family in Massachusetts where he loved to go skiing.

“He loved stories and always had one” or a little joke for his nephews, Kelly said.

Immediate survivors included his brother George of Manhattan. Burial was in St. John’s Cemetery, Middle Village.

Obituaries

Father Emmett Mulligan, OFM, 84, a professed Franciscan friar for 59 years, and a priest for 54 years, died March 6 at Holy Name Friary, Ringwood, N.J.
Born in Brooklyn, he was baptized at Holy Family Church, 13th St., Park Slope, and attended Holy Family School; James Madison H.S.; Seton Hall University, South Orange, N.J.; and St. Joseph Seraphic Seminary, Callicoon, N.Y.

He was received into the Franciscan order in 1946 and was ordained a priest June 28, 1952, at Mount St. Sepulchre Friary Church, Washington, D.C., by Archbishop Amleto G. Cicognani, the Apostolic Delegate to the United States.

Father Mulligan served as an assistant at St. Anthony Shrine, Boston, 1953-57, and was a U.S. Navy chaplain from 1957 to 1963. He also served as an assistant at St. Francis Chapel, Providence, R.I., 1963-71, and was a chaplain at St. Mary’s Hospital, West Palm Beach, FL., 1971-2003.

In 2003, he retired to St. Anthony’s Friary, St. Petersburg, FL. In 2004, he moved to Ringwood.
Burial was in God’s Acre Cemetery, Ringwood.

Bishop Jose Ivo Lorscheiter, the retired bishop of Santa Maria, Brazil, and one of the most outspoken bishops in Brazil during the country’s military regime, died at the age of 79.

He died March 5 of multiple organ failure. He was part of a group of clergy who took the lead in combating the 1964-1985 Brazilian military regime.

Under his leadership, the Church was often the only national institution that could effectively criticize the military regime, especially on human rights issues. Representatives of the bishops’ conference were also influential in talks which led to the return in 1985 of a democratically elected government.

Bishop Lorscheiter represented the Church in conflicts with the military regime, which imprisoned and tortured several Catholic priests. The Church helped the families of political prisoners and denounced tortures committed in military prisons.

Those conflicts led Bishop Lorscheiter to become known as a “red bishop,” although he was against the legalization of the Communist Party in Brazil in the 1980s.

Bishop Lorscheiter was a leading proponent of liberation theology, which saw a strong tie between the spiritual liberation from sin and the need for temporal liberation from poverty and social ills.
Though he often took the lead in the political issues supported by the Catholic Church in Brazil, Bishop Lorscheiter said he believed that at some point the Church had to leave politics and concentrate on religion.
“The Catholic Church is not a political party,” he said.

Rita Porter, 76, retired national executive director of the national council of the Society of St. Vincent de Paul, died March 2 in St. Louis.

Porter was the first woman to serve as a national officer for the society. She was national executive director from 1985 to 1999. Prior to that she served as director of the society’s St. Louis Metropolitan Central Council and had served as a caseworker, coordinator of services to conferences and district councils and director of services and community organizations.

Burial was in the St. Louis area.

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