Sacred Heart Council of Bowie, MD hosted its 19th Dave Grabowski Memorial Pro-Life Classic to benefit The Gabriel Network. The event raised $12,000 to support this pro-life ministry. Here is their website.
Thanks to Melvin for sharing this with me.
If your Council would like to be recognized for pro-life work, please send me an email with the details. awashingtondccatholic@gmail.com
When the story about Fr. Briese broke, there was a huge amount of hate directed to him. However, what most do not know is about the good that he has done in the community.
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The Rev. Michael Briese makes his daily rounds going out to various
apartments, hotels and homeless encampments in the area delivering food
to those in need.
The Saint Mary Catholic Church, Newport priest
attempts to learn about the people he meets; finding out their name and
phone number, how many people are in their family and how they got to
where they are now in an effort to form a relationship with them and in
turn be some kind of encouragement to help them get back on their feet.
To read more, go here.
You can read the statement from the Archdiocese of Washington, as well as, the text of the letter to the local community from Fr. Briese, published in The Independent. You can read it all here.
The Archdiocese of Washington is issuing a formal letter of apology
to the family of a deceased woman whose funeral attendees Wednesday
morning were abruptly evicted from a Charlotte Hall Catholic church by
the priest, the Rev. Michael Briese, who was to preside over a Mass of
Christian Burial.
In a letter shared with The Enterprise, the Rev.
Michael Fisher, secretary for ministerial leadership, wrote to the
deceased woman’s daughter: “What occurred at Saint Mary’s Parish
[Wednesday] morning does not reflect the Catholic Church’s fundamental
calling to respect and uplift the God-given dignity of every person nor
does that incident represent the pastoral approach the priests of the
Archdiocese of Washington commit to undertake every day in their
ministry.”
Ed McFadden, a spokesman for the archdiocese, said the
incident remains under investigation and that he expects further
conversations and developments as the archdiocese continues to
investigate.
For more, click here.
I have had the opportunity to get to know Fr. Briese and speak with him on a number occasions, both in public and privately. This does not seem to be the Fr. Briese I had gotten to know.
My guess, is that there is something more here than meets the eye.
For example, they say that she was baptized there, but was she a practicing Catholic? If she was not a practicing Catholic, did he feel bullied to provide here with a funeral Mass by the family? As this seems to have been the viewing before the Mass, were they being disrespectful in the church.
I don't know but I get a very strange feeling that there is much more to this story than we are being told.
If anyone has the inside story on this, and I mean the real story, not the rumors, you can contact me at awashingtondccatholic@gmail.com.
My colleague in Catholic blogging, Restore DC Catholicism, created a posting on Cardinal McCarrick. In it, she provided a link to an article, which goes into more detail about the allegations regarding the incidents with adults -- not the minor. I remember hearing some of this, but not in as great detail, from my friend Melvin, who told me that he like to be called "Uncle Ted."
Nevertheless, you can read about it here in The American Conservative.
