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A funeral Mass was celebrated last Friday at St. Ignatius Church for Rev. Edward M. O’Flaherty, SJ, who served the Society of Jesus, Boston College and the Archdiocese of Boston in a variety of leadership and teaching roles. Fr. O’Flaherty died of a brain tumor on Feb. 21 at Campion Center in Weston. He was 78.
Fr. O’Flaherty joined BC in 1967 as a member of the Sociology Department, leaving in 1970 to become rector of the community at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, Calif. He went on to serve as provincial of the New England Province from 1979 to 1985, and following a sabbatical in Paris, was president of Weston School of Theology from 1986 until 1992.
At that time, the Archdiocese of Boston asked Fr. O’Flaherty to become director of Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs and to head the Office of Pastoral Support of Priests, working especially with recently ordained clergy. He returned to residence at St. Mary’s Hall on the Boston College campus, where he lived for the remainder of his life.
Fr. O’Flaherty served Boston College as a University trustee from 1986-94 and 1996 until 2004. He was a trustee associate in 1995-96 and again from 2004 until his death. He also served as assistant rector and community treasurer while living in the BC Jesuit community.
With an outstanding intellect and congenial manner, Fr. O’Flaherty was the ideal candidate for any leadership post, said Joseph A. Appleyard, SJ, former vice president of University Mission and Ministry at Boston College. “Everybody trusted his judgment and knew that he was immensely kind and thoughtful,” said Fr. Appleyard, now executive assistant to the provincial of the New England Province of the Society of Jesus.
“He had a wonderful sense of humor, was an extremely clever person and he loved a good story. He was a master of the art of conversation. His kindness, wit, erudition, and love of the Society and the Church enlivened any conversation he was part of, even during the months of decline after the discovery of the brain tumor.”
Fr. O’Flaherty attended Boston College High School and entered the Jesuit novitiate at Shadowbrook in 1952. He did philosophy studies at Eegenhoven, in Belgium, from 1956 until 1959, and then spent two years teaching Latin, history and French at Cheverus High School in Portland, Me., and a year doing graduate studies in anthropology at the University of Pennsylvania. After theology studies at Weston College, he was ordained a priest in 1965. He returned to Penn in 1967, where he received a doctorate in anthropology.
He is survived by his sisters, Eileen Bero and Jean Crossen.
Burial took place in the Jesuit Cemetery at the Campion Center in Weston.