Biden has tearful meeting in Ireland with Paterson priest O’Grady

FATHER FRANK
O’GRADY

While visiting the Knock Shrine in Ireland on Friday, President Joe Biden had a tearful meeting with the priest who gave his son Beau his last rites nearly eight years ago before he succumbed to brain cancer at the age of 46.

The priest, Father Frank O’Grady, a priest of the Diocese of Paterson, had administered the sacrament to Beau in 2015 while serving as a chaplain for the United States Army at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Maryland. He now works at the Knock Shrine, the site of an 1879 Marian apparition in western Ireland.

Father Richard Gibbons, the rector of the shrine, told the BBC that the meeting was “spontaneous” and “wonderful.”

“[Biden] was crying,” Gibbons told the BBC. “It really affected him and then we said a prayer, said a decade of the rosary for his family. He lit a candle, and then he took a moment or two of [privacy] for prayer.”

The BBC reported that Father O’Grady said he was surprised to find out the president wanted to meet with him.

“I hadn’t seen him really in eight years since Beau died,” O’Grady said. “His son Hunter was there too, so we had a real reunion. He certainly misses his son. He has been grieving a lot.”

In an interview he gave to RTE, Ireland’s National Public Service Media, Father O’Grady said that he spent a “delightful ten minutes with the president,” adding that the president invited him to the Oval Office following their chat.

He continued: “He certainly misses his son. He has been grieving a lot, but I think the grief is kind of going down a bit. We talked a little bit about how grief can take several years.”

Biden told Father O’Grady that his faith had “sustained him,” adding that he was “thrilled to be in Knock, in Ireland, and overwhelmed at the country’s beauty,” as well as people’s kindness, according to the RTE report.

“He certainly was very impressed with Knock. As a man of great faith,” Father O’Grady told RTE. “It really hit home very hard to him about his son’s passing when he comes to Knock because we talk about mysteries of life and death in a place like Knock all the time here. He is a man of great faith, and it is just a coincidence that I happened to meet him.”

Last rites, which are available to Catholics when death is imminent, include an opportunity for repentance of one’s sins through the sacrament of reconciliation and receiving the holy Eucharist for the final time if the person has the capacity to do so. It also includes a series of prayers and the sacrament of anointing of the sick.

During his visit, Father Gibbons gave Biden a tour of the shrine. The president touched the wall of the original gable, where more than a dozen villagers attest that they saw an apparition of the Virgin Mary, St. Joseph, and St. John the Evangelist. In 2021, Pope Francis recognized the site as a eucharistic and Marian shrine.

Born in Ireland, Father O’Grady was ordained on June 7, 1969, in St. Patrick Cathedral in Thurles. He served in parishes in England until 1979, when he relocated to the United States and the Diocese of Paterson.

“Of course, at that time, many Irish priests came to the U.S.,” Father O’Grady told The Beacon. “Paterson had 50 Irish priests on active service in the Diocese of Paterson, unlike today.”

In the Paterson Diocese, he served as parochial vicar of both St. Margaret of Scotland Parish in Morristown and Our Lady of Pompei Parish in Paterson. He taught at DePaul Catholic High School in Wayne, was a youth minister at Paterson Catholic (now closed), and was Paterson Deanery coordinator for youth.

He holds a doctorate in ministry from Drew University in Madison. Father O’Grady served as a U.S. Army chaplain from 1987–2013, attaining the rank of lieutenant colonel. The priest also was awarded the Legion of Merit. He retired from active ministry in 2017.

In that same year, Father O’Grady was recognized for his exceptional pastoral care for wounded and ill U.S. servicemen and women and their families with his nomination as one of eight finalists for Catholic Extension’s 2017–18 Lumen Christi Award. At the time, he was serving as a Catholic clinical chaplain at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center in Bethesda, Md. This marked the first time that a Catholic military chaplain at a military hospital had been named a finalist for the national award, which honors a person or group that works in a mission diocese in the U.S. and “demonstrates how the power of faith can transform lives and communities.”

“His ministry of presence nourishes the faithful amid many trials. As a clinical chaplain at Walter Reed National Military Medical Center for the past seven years, he is frequently found praying with those severely injured in combat. His frequent visits to soldiers receiving treatment for the long haul brought spiritual healing when hope was difficult to grasp,” the Archdiocese for the Military Services affirmed in documentation that it submitted to Catholic Extension in support of Father O’Grady’s nomination for the Lumen Christi Award by Archbishop Timothy Broglio of the Archdiocese for the Military Services.

According to an article published by Dublin’s Independent.ie, Father O’Grady received a special award for the role he played in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attack at the Pentagon as an army chaplain. He was awarded the Army’s Commendation Medal for his ‘leadership and calm professional demeanor.’ Ministering to the survivors and families of the victims, he spent five nights at the Pentagon, according to a 2017 article published by the Archdiocese For the Military Services, USA. His duty: to take care of the mortuary section of the recovery operation.

Bishop Kevin J. Sweeney is scheduled to interview Father Frank O’Grady on episode 6 of his podcast, Beyond The Beacon, this week. Visit beyond.beaconnj.org to listen. Or watch the episode on the bishop’s YouTube channel: youtube.com/@bishopkevinsweeney