2012 Visitation House Dinner Speaker - Raymond L. Flynn

At th2 2011 Visitation House Dinner (to be held at Our Lady of Mt. Carmel in Worcester), our guest speaker will be Raymond L. Flynn.

A former U.S. Ambassador to the Vatican and three-term Mayor of Boston, Raymond L. Flynn is a best-selling author, political commentator, and frequent political and religious analyst on national and local television.

Ray is a graduate of Providence College where he was a Dean’s List Student and an Academic All-American basketball player. He was the last player cut by the world champion Boston Celtics in 1964. In 2000, he was voted South Boston’s Greatest Athlete of the Century. Following a tour of duty in the U.S. Army, Ray worked as a teacher, coach and probation officer before entering politics. Ray was first elected Mayor of Boston in 1984, and won reelection twice, each time by record margins. His hands-on style and tireless energy led him to be called the “Mayor of the Neighborhoods.” He was widely credited with ensuring that all the people of Boston’s neighborhoods shared the prosperity of the city’s downtown, and he led efforts to achieve a new spirit of racial harmony to Boston. By the time he left office, a newspaper poll showed that his favorability rating was nearly 80% and that almost half of the city’s residents had actually met him.

Ray’s success in Boston and advocacy for cities led him to become a national spokesman on urban issues. He served as National President of the U.S. Conference of Mayors from 1991-92 and was Chairman of the Conference’s Committee on Hunger and Homelessness. He helped write and lobby Congress for passage of the McKinney Homeless Assistance Act, the first piece of national legislation to help the homeless.

While Ambassador to the Vatican, Ray also served as the U.S. representative in relief efforts around the world and helped establish a compact between the U.S. government, the Catholic Church, and other religious and non-profit organizations to deliver humanitarian aid to countries suffering from natural disasters, famine, disease, and political unrest.

Ray has a Masters in Education from Harvard and is the recipient of numerous honors and awards including the highest award of the Massachusetts Knights of Columbus, the NAACP’s Martin Luther King Jr. Award for dedication to human rights around the world, and the NCAA Silver Anniversary Award for academic, athletic, and civil achievement.

Ray and his wife, Catherine, live in South Boston and are the parents of six children and grandparents of seventeen.