‘God’s Scribe’: Father Breighner retires popular column after more than 50 years

Not long after Daniel Medinger arrived at the Catholic Review as editor in the 1980s, one of his ideas was to rotate Father Joseph Breighner’s column with the work of another writer. Within two hours after the first issue of the Catholic Review appeared without “Father Joe’s” familiar byline, however, Medinger abandoned the plan.

“The phones were ringing off the hook,” Medinger recalled with a laugh. “That’s the kind of connection he had with readers. For many people, Joe Breighner was the face of Catholicism. He represented a faith that made sense, that was not afraid and that could actually laugh at itself once in a while.”

After more than 50 years of writing for the Catholic Review, Father Breighner is putting down his pen.

The 78-year-old priest, who continued his column even after he officially retired from active ministry a decade ago, is giving up his space in print and online as he deals with ongoing health challenges. His capstone commentary serves as a final farewell from one of the longest-running columnists of any Catholic or secular publication in the nation.

Father Breighner, who first wrote for the Catholic Review as a seminarian, is well known to readers for emphasizing God’s love and for highlighting the good in the world.

The priest, who grew up at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in Essex, could identify with everyday struggles – often sharing deeply personal experiences such as his father’s abandonment of his family, the joys and challenges of priesthood and his various health struggles.

Self-described as “God’s Scribe,” he struck an empathetic chord, offering hope to people dealing with the trauma of divorce, the sudden loss of a loved one or crisis pregnancies. He peppered his columns with jokes and often-­repeated anecdotes that readers loved – frequently reflecting on mortality and his confidence in eternal life.

Before writing each column, Father Breighner prayed that God’s words would be his and that his words would be God’s. An admitted Luddite, the priest composed most of his commentaries with pen and paper, though he sometimes used a computer.

“I felt I could reach a larger audience (with a column),” Father Breighner said. “It really was a labor of love. I always like telling stories and being able to highlight something someone else was doing.”

Over the decades, Father Breighner’s column had a variety of names, including “Alternating Currents,” “View from the Pews” and “Wit and Wisdom.”

In print, Father Breighner’s work first appeared in a weekly format, moving to biweekly and monthly as the Catholic Review’s frequency evolved. He wrote an estimated 2,300 columns for the official news organization of the Archdiocese of Baltimore.

Medinger, who stepped down as editor of the Catholic Review in 2009, recalled that Cathedral Foundation Press, operated by what is today Catholic Review Media, published several of Father Breighner’s books. The first, a 1994 compilation of the priest’s most popular Catholic Review columns, became a bestseller.

“We went through at least four printings of that book,” Medinger said. “He had a very unique quality in being able to inspire people, challenge people and make them laugh, all in columns of about 650 words.”

Medinger noted that Father Breighner, despite his fame, popularity and “star quality,” was always down-to-earth.

“When he gave talks, he would lug his books around in the trunk of his car,” Medinger recalled. “He wasn’t expecting somebody to valet him here and there. He was always very independent and very humble about all that stuff, and I think it just made people like him even more.”

Bill Kristofco, a longtime friend who met Father Breighner when the two were young seminarians at St. Charles College Seminary in Catonsville, said numerous people over the decades have told him that Father Breighner’s column is their favorite part of the Catholic Review.

“People have told me that the very first thing they read in the Catholic Review is Father Joe,” said Kristofco, a parishioner of Immaculate Heart of Mary in Baynesville.

A Father Breighner column that most stands out to Kristofco is one in which Father Breighner recounted receiving a thank-you call from a man he had first encountered 50 years earlier when the two had a minor fender bender. The man had been on his way to the cemetery where his mother was buried, intending to commit suicide. Meeting Father Breighner, who would earn a certificate in pastoral counseling from the Institute of Pastoral Psychotherapy in Washington, D.C., literally saved his life.

“Those kinds of tales are numerous in one way or another,” Kristofco said. “The consoling words that Joe had affected lives that we’ll never know about.”

Sister Susan Engel, a Mission Helper of the Sacred Heart who serves as pastoral associate at Church of the Annunciation in Rosedale, said Father Breighner’s kindness and gentleness radiated through his column. Sister Susan came to know Father Breighner when he served for many years as a weekend associate at Annunciation.

“He’s a priest people trust,” she said, noting that Father Breighner gave parish missions throughout the Archdiocese of Baltimore. “He’s credible and he makes religion credible. He’s a wonderful counselor. He’s on the level with real people in real situations.”

Ordained in 1971, Father Breighner served as associate pastor of Shrine of the Little Flower in Baltimore and St. Charles Borromeo in Pikesville. He was the coordinator of evangelization for the Archdiocese of Baltimore from 1979 to 1989.

In addition to his column and books, Father Breighner devoted much of his priesthood to a popular radio program called “Country Roads,” which he hosted for 35 years. The program, based at WPOC and airing on more than 1,500 radio stations around the country at its height, offered spiritual reflections based on popular country songs.

Pete McGraw, one of Father Breighner’s close friends, remembered Father Breighner telling stories of a motorcycle club that used to pull off the road to listen to the show each week. When one of the members died, Father Breighner was the only priest or minister they knew, so they asked him to offer the memorial service.

“The insights into life he wrote about in his column were very similar to the ones on his radio show,” Kristofco said.

Father Breighner, who in recent years reduced the length of his columns to about 350 words, relocated this year from his longtime residence at the Cathedral of Mary Our Queen in Homeland to Oak Crest Retirement Community in Parkville. He regularly celebrates Mass there.

While he said he leaves his column with a “heavy heart,” the ever-smiling priest is grateful for the decades he had to share his thoughts.

“My aim has always been to present religion in the most positive light that I could,” Father Breighner wrote in his farewell column. “I tried to make complicated issues understandable. Too often theologians write in language that only they understand; I have tried to make even the most complicated issues understandable.”

Christopher Gunty contributed to this article. Catholic Review Media will host a celebration of Father Breighner July 12 at St. Joseph in Fullerton. For more information, click here.

Email George Matysek at gmatysek@CatholicReview.org

Also see:

Farewell and thank you

Father Breighner retires, but isn’t slowing down much (2013)

Farewell and thank you

Guide to Jesus

Life in Christ

What we love

Let good prevail

Toward eternity

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