A Maryland priest phoned the police on an African-American family while they were mourning during a funeral.
The priest, Michael Briese, who is white, went on a truly disturbing rant at Saint Mary’s Catholic Church in Charlotte Hall on Tuesday (June 26) in an outrageous incident that was caught on cellphone video. Hundreds of mourners came to the church to remember and pay respects to Agnes Hicks, 54, but perhaps got the shock of their lives when Briese lost his cool. One of the gatherers accidentally knocked over a church chalice, which Briese took personally. The priest used his privilege to tell the family to get out—in the middle of the service, Fox 5 reported.
“That’s when all hell broke loose. 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,’”
Shanice Chisely, the daughter of Hicks, said, “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.”
Adding insult to injury, Briese then called the cops to make the family leave the church. The officers didn’t do anything because the family did nothing wrong. However, mourners were escorted to another church in a different county to finish the service with another pastor.
The Archdiocese of Washington addressed the incident with an expected apology, but Briese hasn’t said anything about his horrible behavior.
