Joe Biden in tears after meeting priest who gave son last rites

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Joe Biden In Ireland: Father Richard Gibbons said that he was not aware that one of the priests in the parish had a personal connection to the president.

US President Joe Biden was moved to tears after a chance meeting with the priest who performed the last rites for his son Beau Biden who died of brain cancer in 2015. Father Frank O’Grady met Joe Biden as the US President toured Knock shrine in Co Mayo as part of his final day of engagements in Ireland.

The parish priest of Knock, Father Richard Gibbons, said as per The Independent that the president was brought to tears when he met the priest.

“He laughed, he cried, it just kind of hit the man, you could just see how deeply it all felt and meant to him. It was an extraordinary afternoon. I won’t forget it, I can tell you that it was quite something else,” Father Richard Gibbons said.

Father Richard Gibbons said that he was not aware that one of the priests in the parish had a personal connection to the president.

“He spoke about his family and his connection with his faith, and also about his son Beau who died. 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,” Father Richard Gibbons said.

Just extraordinary, and I didn’t even know that, I didn’t know that until the president arrived,” Father Richard Gibbons said on learning of the connection.

So he dispatched a Secret Service agent to go and find him, I had his number so I contacted him immediately. And he got the shock of his life to come over you know, so that was a wonderful, spontaneous thing that happened,” he added.