Former Boston Mayor and ambassador to the Vatican, Ray Flynn, was hospitalized after collapsing during a speaking engagement in Quincy, family members said, according to the Boston Herald. Flynn’s son said his father was conscious and alert when he was taken into the ambulance.

Flynn was taken by ambulance from Bad Abbott’s to St. Elizabeth’s Medical Center in Brighton, where he was undergoing tests last night to determine what happened, said Flynn’s son Ed Flynn, according to the Boston Herald. Hospital officials said that Flynn was in fair condition.

Raymond Fynn was giving a speech at “Theology on Tap,” an event sponsored by St. Anne’s Church in Quincy, when he began to fell faint and collapsed.

“He hasn’t been feeling well in a long time,” his son said, according to the same source. “He’s been under a lot of stress the last month.” He had been hard hit by the recent death of his brother, Dennis Flynn. He did of a heart attack late last month.

His son also revealed that his father has been battling a rare form of skin cancer, recurring melanoma, which has affected his hands, ears and face.

Flynn served as state representative for South Boston in the late 1970s and then as Boston mayor from 1984 to 1993.  In 1999, he became president of a national lay Catholic political advocacy organization, Catholic Alliance.  Flynn was appointed American ambassador of the Holy See (1993-1997) by President Bill Clinton.