Biden breaks down after emotional meeting with priest who gave last rites to President's son

Father Frank O’Grady performed the sacrament for Beau Biden who died of brain cancer in 2015.

Mr Biden toured Knock shrine in Co Mayo as part of his final day of engagements in Ireland.

Knock shrine is a Catholic pilgrimage site, where locals claimed to have seen an apparition of the Virgin Mary in 1879.

The parish priest of Knock, Father Richard Gibbons, said the president was brought to tears when he met the man who performed the final sacrament for his son.

“He laughed, he cried, it just kind of hit the man, you could just see how deeply it all felt and meant to him,” Fr Gibbons told the BBC.

He added: “It was an extraordinary afternoon. I won’t forget it, I can tell you that it was quite something else.”

Fr Gibbons said that he was unaware one of the priests in the parish had a personal connection to the president, and so the meeting of President Biden and Fr O’Grady was a last minute and chance encounter.

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

“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.

“Just extraordinary, and I didn’t even know that, I didn’t know that until the president arrived.”

Fr Gibbons said on learning of the connection, Mr Biden wanted to meet Fr O’Grady immediately.

Fr Gibbons also said Mr Biden had a private moment of prayer before receiving a rare gift from the holy site – a piece of stone from the wall where the apparition of the Virgin Mary reportedly occurred.

Mr Biden was pictured touching the original apparition wall before heading inside the chapel.

On his arrival at the shrine, the president was met by cheering crowds waving Ireland, US and Mayo flags, – one sign in the crowd read “Welcome Home Joe”. The pilgrimage location has been visited by several popes, most recently by Pope Francis in 2018.