Divine Word Father Dennis Flynn, 90, died Feb. 25 in Techny. He was a missionary to the Philippines, where he was born, for 40 years.

His father died during the 1942 Bataan Death March, in which Japanese soldiers forced Filipino and American prisoners to walk 65 miles in torturous conditions. Before his death, his American father wrote to his Filipino mother, telling her that if something happened to him that he wanted their four children to be raised in the United States.

His mother was able to move the family to Portland, Oregon, in 1948, and then to New Jersey to be closer to their father’s family.

Father Flynn professed vows in 1954 and was ordained to the priesthood in 1961.

Tagalog was his first language, so his assignment to the Philippines was a natural choice. For the first 20 years of his priesthood, Father Flynn provided pastoral care for the indigenous Mangyan people in Mindoro in the Central Philippines.

In the early 1980s, Father Flynn worked with the indigenous population of Australia before being transferred back to the United States. He returned to the Philippines for the last 20 years of his missionary ministry before retiring to Techny in 2020.