Waterfront is key to Boston’s revival

Printed from: https://newbostonpost.com/2016/05/24/waterfront-the-key-to-bostons-revival/

After the speaking program at the Boston Waterfront Cruise Terminal in South Boston last week, a young student from Catholic Academy came up to me and asked me, “Mr. Flynn, I heard all these people say how you were able to bring all these big passenger ships to come to Boston when you were mayor. I heard that for the first time, a Disney Ship is coming to Boston and taking people to Disneyland. That’s cool. How did you do that?”

A couple of Mass. Port officials were standing beside me and I could see that they were anxiously waiting to hear how I would respond to the question.

“Well, when I was about your age, I often came down here with my mother to bring my father a sandwich and hot tea,” I said. “I loved looking at all the big cargo ships. You see, my father was a dockworker. Sometimes we would walk over to Our Lady of Good Voyage and say a prayer. The freight trains were right there, so the men would give us some fruit that just came off the ship from South America. We loved coming down here from South Boston. But all that changed when my father took sick from all the bacteria from the hold of the ship, and he was sent to the hospital for a few years.”

It was on the Boston docks that I learned the value of hard work and a decent-paying family wage. I later studied Catholic social justice teaching in college and even in graduate school. No matter where I went or what I did, these values and lessons came with me.

Today, we still hear these same words expressed regularity by Catholic Church leaders, including Pope Francis and Cardinal Seán. I also heard Pope John Paul II speak passionately and repeatedly say that as Catholics we must be pro-life, pro-family and pro-poor. This position is sometimes met with criticism and ridicule from political ideologues, because they are committed to following a partisan political party ideology, which the Church does not exclusively adhere to. Good people are entitled to follow and advance whatever political philosophy they want, but they shouldn’t expect to change Catholic social justice teaching.

Since 1986, when I was mayor, big cruise ships started to once again come into the Port of Boston, bringing thousands of good paying jobs for union longshoremen, jobs in the hospitality industry and millions of dollars in revenue for the city and state. Both Mass. Port and the City of Boston have been working hard to attract more maritime-related jobs. The Port of Boston is where the new world and new opportunities began for so many immigrants. They raised wonderful families, served our nation and helped make Boston the great city that it is, but we can continue to make it even greater.

My wife’s father worked on the waterfront when he first came from Ireland and even lost his leg there. My father also worked as a dockworker and got seriously sick there, and so did other members of our family. I worked there, as well. The Port can be great again.

I would love to see Boston become the medical research center in the country. Too many people are suffering with diseases, like Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, autism, cancer, MLS, and SPTAN1, which very little research is being done in our country to help end this pain and suffering. This is the dream of many families.

We must call on our many fine elected officials such as Governor Baker, Mayor Walsh, U.S. Senators Markey and Warren, Speaker DeLeo, Congressman Lynch, and all of our local officials to make this dream a reality. I have studied what needs to happen and it’s more dollars for medical research. We need to let our next U.S. President know that it’s time we paid more attention to the problems of Americans. That should be our number one priority.

Our waterfront is key to Boston and America’s future.

Ray Flynn

Ray Flynn

Ray Flynn is the former Mayor of Boston and U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican. Read his previous columns here.