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	Homegrown Cleric Realized His Dream Retiring Archbishop Sought Priesthood since Schenectady Boyhood By Robert Gavin Albany Times Union May 6, 2008 http://www.timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=686327&category=REGION&newsdate=5/6/2008 ALBANY — Archbishop Harry J. Flynn, a Schenectady native who became a key figure in the Catholic Church's early efforts to root out clergy abuse, has retired from his post in Minnesota. Flynn, one-time pastor of St. Ambrose parish in Latham and leader of the 650,000-member Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, resigned Friday upon turning 75, the church's mandatory age of retirement for archbishops. Flynn will remain in Minnesota, where he maintains an office at the campus of the University of St. Thomas in St. Paul. He will chair a board of trustees and co-chair a capital campaign, according to the Star-Tribune newspaper in Minneapolis. "I have many, many engagements over the next month," Flynn told the newspaper. "I'll be busy." It ends a career that for Flynn realized a childhood dream. In 1986, his sister, Margaret Norman, told the Times Union, "He always went to church. Most kids don't like to go to Sunday school, but he did. He was very religious, even as a little boy and always wanted to be a priest." Flynn, a graduate of St. Columba's High School in Schenectady, was ordained in Albany in 1960, after earning bachelor's and master's degrees from Siena College. He attended Mount Saint Mary's Seminary in Maryland before holding various roles in the Albany Diocese. In 1986, Flynn left St. Ambrose for the Diocese of Lafayette, La., where he served as bishop. In 1995, he went to the Twin Cities, overseeing a 12-county archdiocese in Minnesota from the Cathedral of St. Paul. Over the next years, Flynn received national accolades for his work heading an ad hoc committee investigating sexual abuse by the clergy. In 2002, he was appointed chairman of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops' Committee on Sexual Abuse. He played a central role when the bishops met in Dallas that June, adopting a "zero-tolerance" policy for sexual abuse. "The church, which has never shirked from gathering the wounded stranger in her arm, cannot shirk from gathering the children wounded by her very own ministers," Flynn told the Times Union in 2003. He could not be reached Monday. "I don't know of a more pastoral bishop in the country than Harry Flynn," said Albany Bishop Howard Hubbard, who has known Flynn since 1964. When Flynn left for Louisiana, it was to handle one of the church's first clergy abuse scandals, Hubbard said. Hubbard said the archbishop has a summer home at Schroon Lake, within the Albany diocese. Robert Gavin can be reached at 434-2403 or by e-mail at rgavin@ timesunion.com.
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