A Maryland priest angrily threw mourners out of his church before the start of a funeral last week after someone accidentally knocked over a chalice and reportedly broke it.
The priest's rant, captured on cell phone video, shows him arguing with and waving his arm at family members just a few feet away from where the body of Agnes Hicks lay in repose in an open casket.
Renetta Baker, Hicks' daughter, told the Independent that before the funeral started she was hugging and greeting visitors when someone accidentally knocked over an empty chalice, which got damaged. She said she didn't realize at first that the cup got knocked over.
"One of the ladies (at the church) came out and saw it, and she went back and told him, told Father Michael," Baker told the newspaper. "He came out yelling at me. So I stood up and said we're going to take care of it after the funeral."
She told the newspaper the priest went to the back of the church, then came back out again.
"That's when all hell broke loose," Shanice Chisely, Agnes Hicks' daughter, told Fox 5. "He literally got on the mic and said, 'there will be no funeral, there will be no mass, no repass, everyone get the hell out of my church.'
"He disrespected our family, he disrespected my mother. He called my mother 'a thing.' He said, 'get this thing out of my church! Everyone get the hell out of my church!' It was very sad. I've never seen anything like that before."
The family says the priest called the police on them.
Diane Richardson, spokeswoman for the Charles County Sheriff's Office, told the Independent that police received a call about 10:30 a.m. from the church about a public disturbance and destruction of church property.
Richardson said police, who tried to mediate the situation, couldn't make out what the dispute was about. She said no charges were filed and no one was arrested.
Fox 5 reports there were police cars in the parking lot as Hicks' casket was carried out of the church and placed in the funeral hearse.
According to Fox 5, police escorted the family to another funeral home in another county where a priest from another parish performed the funeral.
https://www.kansascity.com/news/nation-world/article214182989.html
The priest's apology
Two minutes can change a life. In an emergency medical situation, two minutes can save a life. But can two minutes erase a quarter-century of a person's life and commitment to serving and caring for his community and those entrusted to his care? I hope not.
I am a Catholic priest and the pastor at St. Mary's Catholic Church, Newport in Charlotte Hall, and as reported elsewhere in this newspaper and on its website, I lost my temper at a moment when anger was the most inappropriate response to those people entrusted to my care at that moment of ministry.
Before the start of a funeral Mass on Wednesday, June 27, one of the guests in the church damaged a sacred chalice used for the Mass. The sight of that accident made my frustration boil over. My anger spilled out in a torrent. I uttered words I never use, and treated people I have lived with and committed my life to serve in an unacceptable manner. Instead of care and compassion for the grieving family and friends, my focus turned to anger.
The man who canceled this family's funeral and dispatched them in anger, is not the man who hours before worked to minister to their needs in a time of grief. Instead of lifting them up, I let them down. For the anger and embarrassment I caused to that family, I am profoundly sorry.
http://www.somdnews.com/enterprise/...cle_f64144bd-32a6-5acc-a251-b5c1119aeb7e.html
