The Priest and the President of the United States of America
A remarkable story unfolded in April of this year where a chance meeting between Gurteen priest Fr Frank O’Grady (78) and US President Joe Biden during his four-day visit to Ireland captured headlines across the world. Michael Daly has been waiting for a
A 78-YEAR-OLD Sligo priest made headlines across the world in April 2023 during President Joe Biden’s fourday visit to Ireland. It remains one of the stories of the year.
A quick Google search alone will reveal how newspapers such as The New York Times, the UK-based The Guardian to name two and multiple radio and TV stations across the globe featured the remarkable link between Fr Frank O’Grady and President Biden who was surprised and delighted to learn during his visit to Knock that Fr O’Grady was serving as a priest at the world-famous Mayo shrine.
“I went viral apparently,” a bemused
Fr O’Grady told the Sligo Weekender as he laughed at how their meeting took off across the world.
“I was very surprised at how our meeting went viral in less than five minutes, so much so that a relative through marriage told how he had seen me on TV in Poland.
“I’ve never been to Poland in my life, so I thought that was fun, so there you go.”
Speaking about the subsequent invitation extended to him by President Biden to visit him in the White House, Fr O’Grady said he was conscious that the President was very busy with the war in Ukraine and the very serious situation in Israel/Gaza, so he feels he should wait until world affairs are less hectic as he doesn’t want to impose on a busy man - but he will definitely take up the invitation.
“There are two wars going on, his hands are full, so I will take my time on that visit, but I do intend to take up the invitation, but at the right time for Mr Biden,” he said.
Fr Frank continues to get calls on a regular basis from the Washington Post, they are particularly keen to talk to him about Joe Biden’s son Hunter. For a few decades Fr O’Grady had slipped under the radar.
The priest from the village of Gurteen served as an army chaplain in various parts of the US. But the radar was humming following what was a chance meeting between the two at Knock Shrine. President Biden reportedly broke down in tears when he met Fr O’Grady who had performed the last rites on his 46-year-old son Beau Biden who died in 2015 from brain cancer.
President Biden had been unaware that Fr O’Grady was based at Knock and on learning that he was there, asked to meet him in an unplanned and emotional private meeting between the two - a meeting which became the main story of the trip for many news media outlets globally and locally.
Recalling that chance meeting in the days after the visit, Fr O’Grady explained the simplicity of how it happened: “Word got to him that I had met his son Beau eight years ago in the Walter Reed Hospital in Washington where he was terminally ill.
“I hadn’t anticipated the meeting with President Biden at all. I went over to St Mary’s Hotel across from the Apparition Chapel in Knock as I wanted to get a glimpse of the president walking from the Basilica to the Apparition Chapel. Fr Gibbons had heard of my connection with the president and told him I was based in Knock. Mr Biden told him he wanted to see me. I didn’t have my phone on me, so Fr Gibbons called the secretary who was standing close by St Mary’s Hotel. She brought me to the gate and from there one of the staff from The White House escorted me. I wasn’t cleared by security or anything like that, but the staff member brought me to the Apparition Chapel and I met President Biden there for a few minutes.
“His son Hunter was there and his sister. He gave me a big hug; we hadn’t seen each other for eight years since his son had passed away.
“Many, many people come to Knock with heavy crosses.
“Sometimes you have people in Knock get flashbacks to the sorrows in their life, they go to the Apparition Chapel, and they see the mosaic of the apparition and they get flashbacks. “My first reaction to President Biden was that he is a man of faith, and I told him that. I said to him that it was very nice that he included Knock in his itinerary. I welcomed him.
“We talked about grief, I said to him that grief can take a long time to overcome. He made a comment that his faith had meant a lot to him.
“We talked for a few minutes and invited me to visit him in the Oval office when I would be “in the States”. President Biden presented Fr O’Grady with two coins, one was his own coin, the other a coin commemorating the visit to Ireland.
“He was a quite emotional man, very people-centered,” Fr O’Grady added.
BROUGHT TO TEARS
The parish priest of Knock, Father Richard Gibbons, said the president was brought to tears when he met the man who performed the final sacrament for his son.
“He laughed, he cried, it just kind of hit the man, you could just see how deeply it all felt and meant to him,” Fr Gibbons told the BBC.
He added: “It was an extraordinary afternoon. I won’t forget it, I can tell you that it was quite something else.” Fr Gibbons said that he was unaware one of the priests in the parish had a personal connection to the president, and so the meeting of President Biden and Fr O’Grady was a last minute and chance encounter.
“He spoke about his family and his connection with his faith, and also about his son Beau who died,” Fr Gibbons added.
“And it just so happened, and this was kind of spontaneous, it just so happened that we have, working at the shrine here, the chaplain who gives the last rites, the last anointing to his son in the United States.
“Just extraordinary, and I didn’t even know that, I didn’t know that until the president arrived. Fr Gibbons said on learning of the connection, Mr Biden wanted to meet Fr O’Grady immediately.
Fr Gibbons said he would have arranged to have Fr O’Grady in the line-up to meet the US President if he had known.
“I asked, I said to Fr Frank O’Grady, ‘Why didn’t you tell me this when he