Knock, Ireland - President Joe Biden had an emotional reunion with Father Frank O’Grady, the priest who administered the last rites to his son Beau in 2015, during his recent visit to the Knock Shrine in Ireland on Friday.

Beau had passed away at the age of 46 after battling brain cancer, and Father O’Grady had served as a chaplain for the United States Army at the time. Presently, Father O’Grady works at the Knock Shrine, which is renowned for an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879.

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

Laurita Blewitt (left), cousin of President Joe Biden (center), Hunter Biden (third from left), Mike Smith (right), Chairman and Martina Jennings (second from left), CEO of Mayo Roscommon Hospice Foundation, and Valerie Biden Owens (second from right) view a plaque to President Biden's late son Beau outside Mayo Roscommon Hospice and Palliative Care Center in the West of Ireland on April 14, 2023, on the last day of a four day trip to Northern Ireland and Ireland. Image/ Getty Images

“[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.”

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.
-CNA