Funeral service in Charlotte held under revival-style tent
CHARLOTTE — Under a billowing white tent and Carolina blue sky, Christian leaders and close friends said goodbye to “America’s pastor,” the Rev. Billy Graham, during a private funeral service March 2.
The 28,000-square-foot tent – reminiscent of the “canvas cathedral” in which the Southern Baptist preacher conducted his 1949 Los Angeles Crusade that propelled him onto the national stage – blocked the windy weather for 2,000 invited guests who had gathered in front of the Billy Graham Library for the service.
Graham died Feb. 21 at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, aged 99.
At the funeral – what his family dubbed his “last crusade” – Graham was remembered as a tireless preacher of the Gospel and America’s best-known Christian evangelist. In the tradition of his revival-style crusades, speakers also used the occasion to repeat Graham’s call for people to repent and to accept Jesus Christ.
“My father’s greatest longing is granted,” said Franklin Graham, the late evangelist’s oldest son and head of the family’s worldwide ministry, the Billy Graham
Evangelical Association, delivering his sermon from the pulpit Graham once used at his famous crusades. “Today he’s in heaven. His journey is complete.”
He continued, “If this were your funeral, would you be in heaven? Are you sure? Jesus still calls us to follow Him today.”
“The Bible says that God doesn’t want anyone to perish, but all should come to repentance,” the younger Graham said. “This motivated my father to preach the Gospel with urgency. He wanted to warn men and women of the consequences of sin.”
He repeated the Scripture verse from John 14:6 that Graham frequently quoted in his sermons: “Jesus answered, ‘I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me.’”
“This verse was probably in every message my father preached,” he said. Then he again called on people to repent, adding it was “no better time than right here at Billy Graham’s funeral.”
Dignitaries at the funeral included President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump, Vice President Mike Pence and his wife Karen, the governors of North Carolina and Tennessee, and religious and political leaders, supporters, friends and Graham extended family members.
The service featured hymns sung or played by some of Graham’s favorite musicians, several of whom had accompanied him on his crusades.
Since his ministry began in 1947, Graham conducted more than 400 crusades on six continents and reached an estimated 215 million people. He stressed a personal relationship with Jesus Christ but did not steer people towards any particular church.
In a nod to Graham’s close ties to the Catholic Church, Cardinal Timothy Dolan of New York was there to pay his respects and remember the influence Graham had on his life and on Christianity in the United States.
“I grew up in a sound Catholic home, and yet my mom and dad and my grandparents loved listening to Billy,” Cardinal Dolan said.
In the 1950s and 1960s Graham offered a message of hope in a world full of conflict, communist oppression and materialism, he said. “People naturally said, ‘Where do we go from here? Weapons don’t seem to be doing it, wars don’t seem to be accomplishing anything … where do we go?’ And Billy said, “You go to the Lord.’
“So for me, to have heard a man say that, let me tell you – he had an impact on me becoming a priest, because I said I’d like to do what he does.”
When planning for his own funeral, Graham had specified that Catholic prelates including Cardinal Dolan be invited, recalled Passionist Father Jerome Vereb of Pittsburgh, a longtime friend of Graham’s who worked with him as a former official of the Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity.
“Billy Graham always treasured his many friendships with Roman Catholics,” Father Vereb wrote March 2 in the Pittsburgh Catholic. “He regarded them not just as ecumenical partners in a diplomatic sense, but as his co-laborers in the vineyard of the Lord.”
At his crusades, Graham’s staff connected people to their local Catholic church, and he always made a point of reaching out to the local Catholic bishop wherever he traveled.
Graham played a “tremendous role,” Cardinal Dolan said, “in the American evangelical movement.”
“He was able to have a political impact without being partisan,” Cardinal Dolan said.
Graham counseled 13 consecutive U.S. presidents of both parties and reached millions more through radio, television, and film – playing a leading role in the great evangelical awakening of late 20th century America.
Cardinal Dolan recalled Graham’s later expressions of regret in becoming too close to President Richard Nixon and for criticizing President John Kennedy about his Catholicism.
“His humility and contrition there teaches us we have to be very careful about diluting our role as pastors, if we become partisan,” Cardinal Dolan said.
Graham’s work with Catholic Church leaders dated back to the early days of his ministry, when television broadcasts of “Billy Graham Crusades” began airing in 1957, about the time the Emmy Award-winning show “Life is Worth Living” with Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen was just ending.
“It is not surprising that among his closest friends from the Catholic world was Venerable Archbishop Fulton Sheen,” Father Vereb noted. “As each of them engaged in evangelization from a different stream of Christianity, they shared an underlying spirituality of humility and meekness that supports the cause of Christian unity.”
Graham also became close friends with St. John Paul II, whom he met in Rome in 1981. The pope said they were “brothers,” and Father Vereb said it was easy to see why: Both crisscrossed the globe over the course of their decades-long ministries, preaching the Gospel to millions but with special concern for persecuted peoples.
Like the late pope, Graham traveled extensively, preaching personally in 53 countries and broadcasting his crusades live to audiences in more than 185 countries. Massive crowds turned out at his stadium crusades – his largest single-day audience was 1.1 million people during a 1973 crusade in Seoul, South Korea.
Graham’s half dozen crusades in New York were unforgettable, Cardinal Dolan recalled.
“As anyone growing up in the 1950s and 1960s can tell you, it was hard not to notice and be impressed by the Rev. Billy Graham,” Cardinal Dolan said in a statement after learning of Graham’s death. “Whether it was one of his famous crusades, radio programs, television specials, or meeting and counseling the presidents, Billy Graham seemed to be everywhere, always with the same message: Jesus is your Savior, and wants you to be happy with Him forever.”
In a statement Bishop Peter Jugis, a fellow Charlotte native, called Graham “an inspiring example of a life lived in total dedication to Jesus Christ and His Gospel.”
Graham’s moral authority was instrumental in North Carolina’s approval of a constitutional amendment protecting marriage between one man and one woman.
In the 2012 campaign, in one of his last public acts, Graham added his voice of support for traditional marriage to that of North Carolina’s two Catholic bishops and other faith leaders. Although North Carolina voters overwhelmingly approved the amendment, it was struck down in 2015 by a U.S. Supreme Court decision legalizing homosexual marriage.
But Graham’s connection to North Carolina Catholic leaders goes back earlier.
He led about a dozen crusades in his home state, including four in his hometown of Charlotte.
Msgr. Anthony Marcaccio, who was then the personal secretary for then Charlotte Bishop William Curlin, served on the committee for Graham’s last crusade in Charlotte in 1996.
“The scope of the event was vast, the energy of the staff and committee members was electric and the attitude of Dr. Graham made it all so very ecumenical,” Msgr. Marcaccio recalled. “That was important. We have to recognize that not everyone who was drawn to the crusade was as appreciative of our Catholic tradition as Dr. Graham. I feel certain that some of the more fundamental denominations were skeptical of us even being there. I must say that with Dr. Graham being there it was a feeling as if in a family, when the patriarch is present and all the siblings lay aside their squabbles and get along for at least as long as Dad is in the room. Our Church is blessed to have that paternal feeling of care and order and harmony in the consistent apostolic ministry of the pontiff, our pope, who is the bridge builder for the Christian churches.”
“Through my ministry on the crusade committee I witnessed Dr. Graham in the symbolic role of bridge builder for the Christian churches of the Carolinas. The crusade was an amazing event, the goodwill of the thousands of people present and others praying for its success made the Holy Spirit palpable,” Msgr. Marcaccio said.
Cardinal Dolan agreed, noting that Graham “enjoyed the Catholic use of the word ‘pontifex’ to describe the pope… That’s what we need to be. We need to be a bridge, yes, between God and humanity, but also between people. We are ambassadors for Christ, which he was par excellence. We are in the business of reconciliation, and boy, did he ever do it.”
While his crusades took him to six continents, Graham’s love for his home in the mountains of North Carolina remained constant.
In the week following Graham’s death, family and friends paid homage to the famous evangelist’s North Carolina roots.
Graham’s body was transported by motorcade from his longtime home in Montreat, near Asheville, to Charlotte – a 130-mile route that recalled his childhood and early ministry. Thousands of people lined the motorcade route, and thousands more paid their respects while his body lay in repose at the Billy Graham Library Feb. 26-27 and then at the U.S. Capitol Feb. 28.
“Everybody has a Billy Graham story,” said daughter Ruth Graham, noting that President Trump had shared that when he was young, he attended a Billy Graham Crusade at Yankee Stadium with his father. “‘This is a big deal,’ his dad told him.”
Graham was only the fourth civilian to lie in honor at the Capitol, the last of many awards he received and which included the nation’s highest honors for civilians, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal.
After the funeral Graham’s coffin – a simple pine box crafted by prisoners at Louisiana State Penitentiary in Angola, the nation's largest maximum security prison – was interred next to his wife of 63 years, Ruth Bell Graham, at the foot of a cross-shaped walkway in a prayer garden next to the Billy Graham Library. Ruth Graham died in 2007.
The gravesite lies only four miles away from the site of the dairy farm where Graham grew up.
His grave marker, cut from North Carolina stone, bore a message he personally chose: “Billy Graham, November 7, 1918–February 21, 2018, Preacher of the Gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ. John 14:6.”
Graham never took credit for his worldwide fame, instead always pointing to Jesus Christ.
“As I look back over my life, it’s full of surprises. I never thought I would become friends with people in different countries, all over the world. I see how God’s hand guided me. When I began preaching many years ago, it was not with any thoughts that I’d be preaching to large audiences. God has done this,” he said in 2013 in one of his last interviews.
“Our country’s in great need of a spiritual awakening. Oh, there’ve been times that I’ve wept, as I’ve gone from city to city and I’ve seen how far people have wandered from God. Of all the things that I’ve seen and heard, there’s only one message that can change people’s lives and hearts.
“I want to tell people about the meaning of the cross. Not the cross that hangs on a wall or around someone’s neck…but the real cross of Christ. It’s scarred and bloodstained. His was a rugged cross. I know that many will react to this message, but it is the truth. And with all my heart, I want to leave you with the truth: that He loves you, (is) willing to forgive you of all your sins.”
— Patricia Guilfoyle, editor
People from all walks of life wait hours to pay respects to Rev. Graham
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People from all walks of life wait hours to pay respects to Rev. Graham
WASHINGTON — After the politicians held their morning service Feb. 28, it took members of the public nearly three hours in the mid-afternoon to see the Rev. Billy Graham lying in honor at the U.S. Capitol.It would have been a shorter wait, an usher apologetically assured a group at the Capitol Visitor Center, but the Supreme Court justices decided to make their own visit, so everyone had to be cleared out of the Rotunda while they were there.
Several thousand people quietly and patiently endured a snaking line that began on First Street and continued with two more lines inside the Capitol before ushers guided them to a stairway into the Rotunda, where Rev. Graham's plywood coffin, brightly illuminated by TV lights, rested on a catafalque. The world famous Baptist preacher died Feb. 21 at age 99.
Here are some things one learns on such a pilgrimage:
If anyone's legacy is accurately reflected in the people who attend a visitation, then Rev. Graham's is far more diverse than the old stereotype of white Protestants who attended his American crusades. He was an evangelist who reached people worldwide, and in death drew mourners worldwide.
Just a small selection of people in line included two Dominican brothers from Washington; former Virginia Congressman Frank Wolf; the Rev. Natt Miller, a native of Liberia and a minister with Christian Interdenominational Assemblies; and folks of all ages and races. One woman, who had attended Rev. Graham's first crusade in Los Angeles in 1949, had flown in from California.
No one was there just to gawk at a coffin of a famous person. If one struck up a conversation, one learned that the common thread was that these pilgrims had not known Rev. Graham personally, but credited him for their personal salvation and continued relationship with Jesus Christ. These included a woman who had attended Rev. Graham's first crusade in Los Angeles in 1949.
Shari -- everyone was on a first-name-only basis at this gathering -- had driven from Cleveland, picking up her daughter and grandson en route in Wheeling, West Virginia.
"I'm here because I got saved because of Billy Graham," she told Catholic News Service. "It was in 1973. I'd gone to one of Billy's films, 'Time to Run,' that was being shown by Campus Crusade for Christ. It changed my life."
Dave, from Arlington, Virginia, said he'd found salvation at age 9, also in 1973, when his grandmother sat him down before a televised Rev. Graham crusade. "That's when I knew. That's when I decided," he said.
Lenny, also from Cleveland, attended a crusade there in 1973 and at Rev. Graham's next Cleveland crusade in 1994, was an eager volunteer.
There also was a melancholy sense of an era that had long passed. Rev. Graham had been the last of a triumvirate of national religious leaders that included Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen and Norman Vincent Peale. While each grew to national fame on TV in the 1950s during the peak of the Cold War, when the embrace of Christian faith was considered an effective opposition to the encroach of the Soviet Union, they also were mainstream cultural icons.
Shari said she had shown her daughter a YouTube video of Rev. Graham's interview with Woody Allen in Allen's 1969 CBS special. Allen, an agnostic, attempted to debate Rev. Graham about the existence of God, in what is now considered one of the more surreal moments in the history of broadcasting.
"No one does that anymore," Shari observed. "Sitting down and talking respectfully to each other. You don't see that today."
For all the published tut-tutting about whether it was appropriate for a religious leader to be honored with the same ritual afforded to deceased presidents at the Capitol, the setting provided a dignified, and efficiently large enough, setting for the thousands who wanted to pay their respects.
Finally, in the hushed Rotunda, people formed two rings. The outer ring walked around and broke into lines to shake hands with Graham's family.
There also was a standing inner ring, three to four deep at all times and constantly replenishing.
Every single person in that ring had folded hands, head bowed, eyes closed. They were doing what they'd come there to do, which was to pray at Rev. Graham's coffin as they said farewell. It was Billy's final altar call, and for the moment, the Rotunda became his cathedral.
"Thank y'all for coming," grandson Roy Graham said as he shook each hand.
— Kurt Jensen, Catholic News Service
U.S. leaders praise Rev. Billy Graham at U.S. Capitol ceremony
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U.S. leaders praise Rev. Billy Graham at U.S. Capitol ceremony
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump and congressional leaders paid tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham Feb. 28 in a brief ceremony before the public could pay respects to the evangelist while he lies in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda."Today we give thanks for this extraordinary life. And it's very fitting that we do so right here in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol, where the memory of the American people is enshrined. Here in this room we remember America is a nation sustained by prayer," said Trump.Rev. Graham, who died at age 99 Feb. 21 at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, was known as "America's pastor" and was a spiritual adviser to 13 U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Trump.
He is the fourth person to lie in honor at the Capitol. The last person to have this honor was civil rights icon Rosa Parks in 2005. U.S. Capitol Police officers Jacob Joseph and John Michael Gibson, who were killed in the line of duty in 1998, also received the honor.
Members of Congress and Cabinet members attended the private ceremony along with Rev. Graham's family. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, received the casket when it arrived at the Capitol.
Trump told the assembled group that he heard Rev. Graham address a crowd at Yankee Stadium because his father, Fred Trump, "who was a big fan," wanted the family to attend.
Paul Ryan, who is Catholic, said Rev. Graham's message to presidents, leaders and ordinary people alike "never diminished" and said the well-known preacher was "made great not by who he was, but by who he served, with all of his heart and all of his soul, and all of his mind."
"When our country was on its knees he reminded us, he convinced us, that is exactly when we find our grace and our strength," he added.
McConnell said Rev. Graham was more than a personal success story noting that the evangelist's life was always focused on preaching the gospel.
And this preaching is how he was best known and will likely be remembered. The stadium events where he preached around the world were called Billy Graham crusades. At these venues, including a 16-week run at New York's Madison Square Garden in 1957, he spoke to the crowds about Jesus and invited people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior.
He also reached at least 210 million people through his personal appearances and through his radio and television ministries.
Rev. Graham's body will lie in honor Feb. 28 and March 1 before it will be returned to North Carolina for his private funeral March 2 at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte.
— Carol Zimmermann, Catholic News Service
World famous evangelist was admired by most Americans
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Rev. Graham dies; world famous evangelist was admired by most Americans
MONTREAT, N.C. —The Rev. Billy Graham, a fiery Baptist preacher who was easily the most famous evangelist of the 20th century and for decades one of the world figures most admired by Americans, died early Feb. 21 at his home in Montreat, according to the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association. He was 99.
The Rev. Billy Graham and St. John Paul II are seen at the Vatican in 1990. Graham, best known for his televised evangelism broadcasts, died Feb. 21 at his home in North Carolina at age 99. (CNS files) Rev. Graham recalled for deep faith, his invitation to all to know Christ Rev. Graham had suffered from Parkinson's disease for many years, although he continued to lead crusades until 2005, when he held his last one in New York. In recent years, he also suffered from cancer, pneumonia and other ailments.Rev. Graham will lie in honor the U.S. Capitol Rotunda Feb. 28-March 1. Senate Majority Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, and House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisconsin, will receive the casket with his body when it arrives at the Capitol and will take part in a bicameral service. Members of the public will be able to pay their respects. Rev. Graham will be the first private citizen to lie in honor on Capitol Hill since civil rights heroine Rosa Parks in 2005.
His body will be returned to North Carolina for his funeral March 2 at the Billy Graham Library in Charlotte. The service will be private and by invitation only.
During his more than 60 years of ministry, Rev. Graham welcomed representatives of other denominations, including Catholics, to attend his crusades. In many places local Catholic authorities welcomed him and formed pastoral follow-up programs to welcome lapsed Catholics who were prompted by the preacher to return to the church.
In 1964, Cardinal Richard J. Cushing of Boston said that no Catholic who heard Graham preach "can do anything but become a better Catholic."
At his final crusade, for example, Bishop Nicholas DiMarzio of Brooklyn, in whose diocese the crusade was held, said: "As a fellow Christian, I pray that the Lord will continue to bless him in his ministry to preach the Gospel to all who are willing to listen."
He noted that Rev. Graham encouraged church members who make commitments during a crusade to return to their own churches, and his evangelization office scheduled listening sessions, revival missions and other forms of pastoral outreach in parishes.
Rev. Graham -- who preferred to be called Mr. Graham -- was sometimes regarded as a pastor to presidents because he was known as a spiritual adviser to 13 U.S. presidents, from Harry S. Truman to Donald Trump. He delivered the invocation at eight presidential inaugurations.
He was best known in the United States and worldwide, however, for his crusades -- revival meetings, often held in large stadiums -- that took him to more than 185 countries to preach the message of Jesus Christ and invite people to accept Jesus as their Lord and Savior. In 1957, he filled New York's Madison Square Garden for 16 consecutive weeks.
He preached the Gospel in person to more people than any other evangelist in history -- he reached at least 210 million through his personal appearances and through his radio and television ministries. In 1950, he launched his weekly "Hour of Decision" radio program that became a staple of Christian broadcasting for 60 years.
He reached many more through his films, more than two dozen books, an internationally syndicated newspaper column, "My Answer," and a monthly magazine, Decision, which comes out in six languages and has more than 2 million subscribers.
His 1975 book, "Angels: God's Secret Agents," sold more than a million copies in three months. He wrote more than 30 books, starting in 1947 with "Calling Youth to Christ" and ending in 2015 with "Where I Am: Heaven, Eternity and Our Life Beyond."
When he first met with St. John Paul II in 1981, it was a meeting that had been delayed three years. In 1978, Rev. Graham, on a crusade in Poland, preached at the Catholic cathedral in Krakow and was to have dined with Krakow's Cardinal Karol Wojtyla. But the cardinal had been called out of town on short notice for important business in Rome -- attending the conclave at which he was elected pope.
In an interview with Catholic News Service after a meeting with St. John Paul in 1990, Rev. Graham said being known as an evangelical is misunderstood in some parts of the world.
"Some think in terms of extreme fundamentalism," he said. "But an evangelical is a person who believes in the authority of the Bible, the atonement of Christ on the cross for our sins, of course the virgin birth of Christ, the Resurrection and the need to respond to the good news of the Gospel by repentance and faith."
He praised the pope for his Bible-based vision and message and said the pontiff's homily at the inauguration of his ministry "was a straight evangelistic address."
"Of course Protestants cannot accept everything (the Catholic Church teaches), but they're beginning to find out that we have a great deal in common, and perhaps far more in common than we have differences," he said.
Rev. Graham made common cause with popes later in his life on matters of morality, but in August 1960, he played a role -- though behind the scenes -- in the efforts of a group of Protestant ministers, most of them Baptists, to oppose on religious grounds the election of the Catholic Democratic nominee, John F. Kennedy. The ministers made the decision because, as one of them said: "I fear Catholicism more than I fear Communism."
Reports about how involved Rev. Graham was in this effort are mixed. An associate evangelist of his stated that the preacher had rejected a request from Kennedy that he sign a pledge not to make religion an issue in the campaign. Some accounts say that while he refused to issue such a pledge, he would not come out "publicly" against a Catholic candidate as some Protestants leaders urged him to do. After the election, Rev. Graham and Kennedy were cordial to each other.He was a friend of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., held integrated rallies beginning in 1953 and was considered a major influence in the civil rights movement. Rev. Graham appeared on the Gallup list of world's most admired men 60 times in his life -- every single year the polling company asked the question.
He founded the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association in Minneapolis in 1950 after a photo in what is now The Atlanta-Journal Constitution daily newspaper showed an usher counting a $16,000 "love offering" from a crusade in Atlanta.
Ashamed at the insinuation that he was making a fortune through his ministry, he formed the association and made it the recipient of crusade offerings as well as all his speaker's fees and book royalties. In 2003, the association was moved to North Carolina to be based in Charlotte, Rev. Graham's hometown.
He received from the association the salary of a community pastor. Today the association, run by his son, William Franklin Graham III, has about $300 million in assets and a yearly budget of more than $100 million. The younger Graham has stirred controversy for the ministry with his criticism of Islam in recent years. Rev. Graham's grandson Will also preaches, and he saw Will preach via a television feed during an August 2012 hospital stay for bronchitis.
With his reputation for integrity and simplicity of life, the sex and money scandals that rocked the ministries of the Rev. Jim Bakker and the Rev. Jimmy Swaggart in the 1980s had no effect on Rev. Graham's organization or ministries.
William Franklin Graham Jr. was born in Charlotte Nov. 7, 1918, and raised on a dairy farm in a strict Presbyterian family. At age 16 he attended a revival meeting led by the Rev. Mordecai Fowler Ham. It led him to commit himself to Christ.
Another conversion experience in college led him to commit his life to preaching the Gospel.
He was ordained a Southern Baptist minister in 1939, graduated from Wheaton College in Illinois in 1943. After two years as a pastor in a Chicago suburb, he began working as a traveling tent evangelist.
From 1945 to 1948, he was first vice president of Youth for Christ International, and from 1947 to 1952, he was president of Northwestern College in Minneapolis, dividing his time between those duties and preaching at revivals.
He formed a lasting partnership with singer George Beverly Shea and song leader Cliff Barrows to lead the revival meetings, which he came to describe as crusades. They came to national attention in 1949, when a meeting in Los Angeles, expected to draw about 3,000 people, attracted 10,000.
Among the many awards Rev. Graham received over the years were numerous honorary doctorates and a wide range of religious, humanitarian and broadcasting honors. They included the prestigious Templeton Foundation Prize for Progress in Religion, the Presidential Medal of Freedom and the Congressional Gold Medal, one of the nation's highest civilian honors.
The Billy Graham Library was dedicated in Charlotte May 30, 2007, just two weeks before the death of Ruth Graham, his wife of 64 years. Rev. Graham was to be buried alongside her on the library grounds.
He is survived by two sons and three daughters, 19 grandchildren and 41 great-grandchildren.
— Catholic News Service
When Billy spoke to the monks 1967 event at Belmont Abbey College
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Editor’s note: On the passing of the Rev. Billy Graham on Feb. 21, at the age of 99, we remember the evangelist’s historic visit to Belmont Abbey Monastery in 1967:
When Billy spoke to the monks 1967 event at Belmont Abbey College
Billy Graham at Belmont Abbey with Father John OetgenBELMONT — In 1967 Belmont Abbey was a small, unimposing Catholic college seeking to make itself known. For many colleges, the strategy then, as it is today, was to invite well-known speakers to the campus to give a talk, sometimes in exchange for an honorary degree.The late Father John Oetgen, a past president of the college and a monk of the Belmont Abbey Monastery, had a groundbreaking idea: invite the extremely popular evangelist, the Rev. Billy Graham, to the school for a talk and a degree.
Graham, who was born in Charlotte, accepted. The groundbreaking part was that the
Baptist Graham had never before been invited to speak at a Catholic institution.“That was seen as quite a startling move – both that Billy Graham would accept and that we would confer the (honorary) degree,” said Benedictine Abbot Placid Solari in Father Oetgen’s obituary. “That sounds strange now, but it was a forward-looking gesture at that time on both parts.”
A 1967 account of the event from the Gastonia Gazette quotes Graham as relishing the opportunity to speak to Catholics. He called it “a time when Protestants and Catholics could meet together and greet each other as brothers, whereas 10 years ago they could not.”
Professor of history Dr. Frank Murray, who was just starting his 50-year tenure at the college, recalled, “Dr. Graham spoke in the Haid and it was more packed than I had ever seen.” At that time the Haid building was the school’s main non-liturgical gathering area for students.
Graham’s talk was open to the public and non-students flocked to the school. “I have never seen so many bibles on the Belmont Abbey campus,” quipped Murray.
Father Oetgen introduced the evangelist: “We welcome Dr. Graham here tonight. Because of his presence we have received great praise and recognition nationally.”
But not all of the recognition was positive. A slew of websites that can be found by using the search term “Billy Graham and Belmont Abbey” are harshly critical of Graham’s association with the Catholic Church that began at the Benedictine Abbey in Belmont.
Graham often began his talks with some gentle humor. At the Abbey, Murray said that the preacher joked around saying, “I’m not sure but this could start me being called ‘Father Graham’.”
Graham was not alone in thinking like that. Murray, who was seated among the monks who were also members of the faculty, overheard one of them say, “Wouldn’t it be marvelous to put a habit on this man and take him into the monastery?”
In retrospect, Graham’s talk that day answered his critics by quoting the well-known first verse of the Book of Ecclesiastes: “Vanity of vanities, all is vanity.”On a more serious note, Murray recalls that Graham recognized the ecumenical gravity of the invitation from Belmont Abbey. “I consider this a new stage in my ministry,” said Graham.
Murray said Graham’s speech was a blessing both for the college and for Christianity. “He was open to everyone,” he said.
Did the speech put Belmont Abbey on the map as Father Oetgen intended? Murray said yes. “In every possible way.”
Murray also witnessed talks at the school by Cardinal Terrance Cooke; Archbishop Fulton Sheen; former President Gerald Ford; Jack Lynch, president of the Republic of Ireland, and Werner Von Braun, father of the modern rocket.
Graham went on to speak at many other Catholic institutions, and in the late 1970s he had his first of several meeting with the pope. In that meeting, St. John Paul II renewed Graham’s call to ecumenical friendship by calling the Charlotte native “a brother.”
Father Oetgen, who according to Murray was never at a loss for words, thanked Dr. Graham by saying, “Instead of praise, we should be blamed for not inviting Dr. Graham a long time ago.”
— David Hains, director of communications
Rev. Graham recalled for deep faith, his invitation to all to know Christ
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Rev. Graham recalled for deep faith, his invitation to all to know Christ
WASHINGTON, D.C. — The Rev. Billy Graham was "a preacher of God's word not only in his sermons, but also in the very life he lived," said Cardinal Daniel N. DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
"Today, we pray for the soul of the Rev. Billy Graham to the Lord he so dearly loved and offer our condolences to his family," the cardinal said in a statement about the Feb. 21 death of the world famous Baptist preacher.
"His faith and integrity invited countless thousands around the world into a closer relationship with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Thanks be to God for the ministry of Billy Graham," Cardinal DiNardo said.
An outpouring of statements paid tribute to the man who was easily the most famous evangelist of the 20th century. Born in Charlotte, North Carolina, Rev. Graham died at his home in Montreat, North Carolina, at age 99.
He had suffered from Parkinson's disease for many years, although he continued to lead crusades until 2005, when he held his last one in New York. In recent years, he also suffered from cancer, pneumonia and other ailments.
He preached the Gospel in person to more people than any other evangelist in history. He reached at least 210 million not only through his personal appearances but also through his radio and television ministries.
A Catholic bishop in North Carolina -- and a fellow Charlotte native -- said Rev. Graham "gave us an inspiring example of a life lived in total dedication to Jesus Christ and his Gospel."
"Through his ministry, he taught the world that Jesus is the way and the truth and the life. May the Father of mercies now receive Dr. Graham into his loving embrace. The condolences and prayers of the Catholic Church are with the Graham family at this time," said Bishop Peter J. Jugis of Charlotte.
In neighboring Tennessee, Knoxville Bishop Richard F. Stika recalled meeting Rev. Graham in 1999 during his visit to St. Louis as he was preparing for one of his famous crusades to be held there. That same year, then-Msgr. Stika, a priest of the St. Louis Archdiocese, was archdiocesan coordinator for the visit of St. John Paul II to St. Louis.
"I found him to be a very authentic and humble preacher of the Gospel," Bishop Stika said of the preacher. "During his meeting with then-Archbishop Justin Rigali (of St. Louis), Dr. Graham expressed his immense admiration and respect for Pope John Paul II. Dr. Graham is sorely missed in our nation today and as in so many ways we as a nation have lost our moral bearing. May he now rest in peace."
Cardinal Rigali, now retired and residing in the Diocese of Knoxville, said he remembers the Rev. Graham from that same meeting in St. Louis.
"When I heard the news this morning about the death of Dr. Billy Graham, it brought back memories of the encounter I had with him some years ago in St. Louis with Bishop Stika," he said in a statement. "Something that stands out in the life and ministry of Dr. Graham is this wonderful admiration and love that he had for the person of Jesus Christ. He was always speaking about Christ and always speaking about who he is. He is the Son of God and we are destined to eternal life together with him."
The cardinal remarked that it was encouraging to see how much attention the media was giving to Rev. Graham and "reflecting on his long life." The prelate added: "He has brought the message of Jesus to so many people and I am impressed by his personal piety, by his personal zeal and by his love for our Savior Jesus Christ."
New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan recalled that when he was growing up in the 1950s and 1960s, "it was hard not to notice and be impressed by the Rev. Billy Graham."
"There was no question that the Dolans were a Catholic family, firm in our faith, but in our household, there was always respect and admiration for Billy Graham and the work he was doing to bring people to God," Cardinal Dolan said. "Whether it was one of his famous crusades, radio programs, television specials, or meeting and counseling the presidents, Billy Graham seemed to be everywhere, always with the same message: Jesus is your Savior, and wants you to be happy with him forever."
He said his admiration "only grew" as he studied "our nation's religious past. (I) came to appreciate even more the tremendous role he played in the American evangelical movement."
The chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Ecumenical and Interreligious Affairs said that "in a particular way, Catholics feel the loss of one of the greatest pastors of our time."
"His ecumenical approach in ministry helped to forge bonds of friendship and understanding between Catholics and Protestants. He reminded us that what we had in common in Christ was greater than what divided us," said Bishop Joseph C. Bambera of Scranton, Pennsylvania.
"Headlines today will describe Billy Graham as the preacher to millions and the adviser of presidents but first and foremost, he was a man of deep Christian faith," the bishop added. "Committed to the Gospel, his personal witness and preaching of Jesus Christ touched the hearts of Americans spanning many generations."
— Catholic News Service
Inmates at Louisiana prison built casket for Billy Graham
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Inmates at Louisiana prison built casket for Billy Graham
NEW ORLEANS — In 1995, as inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola lowered the makeshift, cardboard casket containing the body of fellow inmate Joseph Siegel into freshly dug ground at the prison's cemetery, Siegel's body fell through the bottom of the coffin.Then, as the pallbearers positioned the casket with care over his body and began shoveling dirt, the top collapsed.
Burl Cain, in his first year as warden at the nation's largest maximum-security prison, where all but a fraction of the 5,000 men will die without ever walking back through the gates, had seen enough.
Cain gathered inmates for what, by Angola standards, would be an unusual warden-prisoner talk. Many of the prisoners were skilled craftsmen, who had worked for years to set up the popular Angola Prison Rodeo.
"I told them, 'Men, you're going to die here, and we've got to do this with dignity,'" Cain recalled. "'Y'all are going to build a coffin, and it's going to be a nice coffin. When you die, you've served your sentence, and there's no reason for anybody to kick your body.'"
That event more than two decades ago led to inmates at the prison building the casket for the Rev. Billy Graham, the charismatic evangelical Christian leader who died Feb. 21 at age 99.
Cain served as warden at Angola for 21 years and is credited with changing the violent and deadly prison culture through an emphasis on what he calls "moral rehabilitation."
"I coined that term because everybody liked 'morality' and everybody liked 'rehabilitation,' and the ACLU would leave me alone," Cain said. "I couldn't say 'faith-based' and I couldn't say 'Christian.' That would get me sued."
Cain established seminary education, sponsored by the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary, and built several interdenominational chapels, including a hospice chapel funded by Catholic entities and an Alamo chapel, a replica of the original Alamo in San Antonio, Texas, used often by Catholic inmates.
Cain said he was being "selfish" when he decided to open Angola to the outside world, with an emphasis on theological training.
"I realized this: Moral people don't rape, pilfer and steal," Cain said. "So, if I could get these guys to become moral, I'd have a safer prison, I could survive."
In 1997, Chuck Colson, an evangelical Christian who had served prison time for obstruction of justice in the Watergate scandal and who had begun a national prison ministry, visited Angola with Tex Reardon, who was associated with the Rev. Graham and his worldwide evangelical crusades.
"In the 1950s, my mother would send a check for $5 every month to Billy Graham, even though she was a school teacher and my parents were poor," Cain said. "So, I asked Tex Reardon if there was any way he could get Billy Graham to come here -- because this prison needed him."
Not long after that, Graham's son Franklin visited Angola and was so impressed he set the wheels in motion for the construction of two more chapels -- one for the inmates and another, Cain said, for "the employees of our little city."
"They wanted their own people to come build it, because it was a ministry for them," Cain said. "They wanted the pews to be just old-timey so that it would look like an old-timey church."
They put an old bell in the top of an imposing steeple. The bell came from a locomotive that hauled sugar cane around the 18,000-acre Angola plantation the late 1800s, before it became a prison that was larger than the island of Manhattan.
"The Grahams wanted that steeple to be tall enough so that you could see the church from death row," Cain said.
During one of Franklin Graham's visits to Angola, he walked into the prison museum and saw an inmate-made casket. He was overwhelmed by the beauty and simplicity of the treated plywood. The white bedding for the inside of the coffins comes from Walmart.
"He told me, 'This is one my Dad would want to be buried in. It's so plain, but it's built by prisoners. We've got to have these,'" Cain said.
Franklin Graham ordered six coffins, including for Rev. Graham and his wife Ruth, who died in 2007.
Three inmates -- Richard "Grasshopper" Leggett, Clarence "Mr. Bud" Wilkerson and David Bacon -- had the special assignment. Of the three, only Bacon is still alive. He was paroled in December 2012.
"They would pray before they started every day and ask that God would anoint their work, because this was a very serious thing," Cain said. "Billy Graham was a human -- he wasn't God -- but he was one of the godliest humans on the earth. They took it very seriously. And, it was a reverent operation."
At Franklin Graham's request, the three inmates wood-burned their names into the outside of each casket.
Rev. Graham was to be laid to rest March 2, in that Angola coffin, after lying for two days in the U.S. Capitol Rotunda.
Cain said the convergence of sacred circumstances -- how Rev. Graham and faith brought peace to Angola and how Angola brought peace to the Graham family -- leaves him almost speechless.
"If my mother in heaven knows what's going on down here, she would be so proud, because when she wrote those little $5 checks, it influenced her son to like Billy Graham," Cain said. "She led me in that direction."
While, because of ill health, Rev. Graham never could visit Angola, Cain sent him a key to one of Angola's old cells. A few years ago, Cain traveled to the mountains of Montreat, North Carolina, to offer his thanks for all that Rev. Graham and his son had made possible at Angola.
"I got to spend the afternoon with him, and he said, 'I pray for you every day, and my nurse can verify it,'" Cain said. "And then he took out that key and he said, 'Every day, I have a devotional, and I hold that key in my hand, and I pray for you and I pray for your prison.' No wonder we were successful."
— Peter Finney Jr., Catholic News Service
WASHINGTON — After the politicians held their morning service Feb. 28, it took members of the public nearly three hours in the mid-afternoon to see the Rev. Billy Graham lying in honor at the U.S. Capitol.
WASHINGTON, D.C. — President Donald Trump and congressional leaders paid tribute to the Rev. Billy Graham Feb. 28 in a brief ceremony before the public could pay respects to the evangelist while he lies in honor at the U.S. Capitol Rotunda."Today we give thanks for this extraordinary life. And it's very fitting that we do so right here in the Rotunda of the United States Capitol, where the memory of the American people is enshrined. Here in this room we remember America is a nation sustained by prayer," said Trump.
Reports about how involved Rev. Graham was in this effort are mixed. An associate evangelist of his stated that the preacher had rejected a request from Kennedy that he sign a pledge not to make religion an issue in the campaign. Some accounts say that while he refused to issue such a pledge, he would not come out "publicly" against a Catholic candidate as some Protestants leaders urged him to do. After the election, Rev. Graham and Kennedy were cordial to each other.
NEW ORLEANS — In 1995, as inmates at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola lowered the makeshift, cardboard casket containing the body of fellow inmate Joseph Siegel into freshly dug ground at the prison's cemetery, Siegel's body fell through the bottom of the coffin.