Get the hell out of my church!': Catholic priest goes ballistic on grieving family at funeral

Agnes Hicks was baptized as a young girl at Saint Mary Catholic Church in Charlotte Hall, Maryland, and her family told WTTG-TV it's where she'd always wanted her funeral.

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

Indeed, Hicks' wishes were granted — and the 54-year-old's funeral was set last week at Saint Mary church as hundreds of mourners showed up for the service, the station said.

But things soon turned chaotic.

What happened?

Hicks’ daughter, Renetta Baker, told the Maryland Independent she was greeting visitors before the service began when one of them accidentally knocked over and damaged an empty communion chalice. Baker told the paper she initially didn't notice that the chalice had been knocked over.

But apparently "one of the ladies" at the church did — and informed Pastor Michael Briese, Baker told the Independent.

“That's when all hell broke loose," Shanice Chisely, also a daughter of Hicks, recalled to WTTG. "He literally got on the mic and said, ‘There will be no funeral, there will be no mass, no repast, 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.”

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

Baker told the station, “Bad enough we had to bury our own mother yesterday but for you to say she’s a 'thing’ and there will be no funeral. You're not a preacher. You’re not a pastor. You’re not a father of the Lord. You’re not any of that. You’re the devil."

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

Some of what transpired near Hicks' open casket was captured on video, WTTG said.

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

'He was cursing, he didn’t want prayer, he didn’t want anything.'

Ed Hill, a funeral attendant for the Briscoe-Tonic Funeral Home, told the Independent he tried to calm down Father Briese, asking if he could pray with him.

"He told me I need to get out of here, too," Hill told the paper. "He told me, ‘You need to get those people out of here. I want all their asses out of here right now.' He was cursing, he didn’t want prayer, he didn’t want anything.”

Police arrive

Hicks' family told WTTG that Briese called police.

Charles County Sheriff’s Office spokeswoman Diane Richardson told the Independent that police got a call about 10:30 a.m. from Saint Mary regarding a public disturbance and destruction of church property.

Police tried mediating with the family, the funeral home, and the church but that the nature of the dispute was unclear, Richardson told the paper, adding that no charges were filed, and no one was arrested or detained.

Officers escorted Hicks' family to a funeral home in a different county where another pastor performed their funeral service, WTTG said.

'He tried to explain it that he wasn’t a racist'

“After everyone cleared out, it was just the pallbearers," Theo Johnson, a pallbearer and cousin of Hicks, told the Independent. "He tried to explain it that he wasn’t a racist. He said he put plaques on graves out there [in the cemetery], black and white people, he said he feeds the homeless. Nobody said anything about race. We were just saying he was being disrespectful, that this could have been handled after the funeral ..."

Tony Tonic, owner of the funeral home initially used, told the paper he was disturbed by the incident.

“I spoke with my funeral assistant, and he explained to me that the words [Briese] used … he was calling the family everything,” Tonic told the Independent. “I’m just appalled by what I heard happen and the language he was using when he addressed me, as the owner of the funeral home. It was just … it made me very angry, and it needs to be addressed.”

What did the archdiocese have to say?

The Archdiocese of Washington issued an apology to the family saying the incident "does not reflect the Catholic Church’s fundamental calling to respect and uplift the God-given dignity of every person nor does that incident represent the pastoral approach the priests of the Archdiocese of Washington commit to undertake every day in their ministry," WTTG reported.

The archdiocese added that it's taking the matter seriously and is still reviewing it, the station said.

What did the priest have to say?

The Independent reported that calls to Saint Mary church to speak with Briese were directed to the archdiocese's media relations office. But Briese penned a letter to the editor published by the Enterprise about the matter. His letter is titled, "Priest says 'anger was the most inappropriate response' to funeral incident."

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

Here's what Briese wrote, in part:

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.

What else did Hicks' family have to say?

"My mom was supposed to have a great funeral and all this came up, and I’m so traumatized by it," Davon Chisley, Agnes Hicks' son, told WTTG. "I'm going to be thinking about this every day. I’ll never forget this day."

Image source: WTTG-TV video screenshot

Shanice Chisley added to the Independent that "everyone knew my mom ... she would come to everyone’s funeral homes, she would pass out the obituaries, she would help at the repast. It’s just crazy that she was treated like this."

(H/T: The Root)