Parishioners say final goodbyes to late Bishop Lawrence Brandt
At Blessed Sacrament Cathedral in Greensburg on Thursday, people were stopping by to pay their respects to the former leader of the diocese, Bishop Lawrence Brandt.
Bishop Brandt died of natural causes on June 8 at age 86.
On Wednesday, Brandt's body arrived at the cathedral for the final goodbye to parishioners and clergy alike. Since then, his body has been lying in state for those who wished to come to pay their respects.
The current bishop, Larry Kulick, says that his predecessor lived a good and devout life, and that for him, part of Bishop Brandt's legacy is the kindness with which he listened to people and how he made everyone feel heard.
"I would always say to people, sometimes the public perception was, 'Oh, Bishop always knew what he was doing,' and that is exactly what he would do," said Bishop Kulick. "And I would say for those who worked with him behind the scenes, how many times we saw him in that listening, in that discerning, we saw his mind change. And he was someone who understood the importance of taking counsel and could take counsel."
Bishop Brandt was Greensburg's fourth bishop, serving from 2004 to 2015. Before that, however, he served in the Vatican's Diplomatic Corps for several years before being made Chancellor of the Diocese of Erie.
"His dignity and the way he carried himself," Kulick said. "As I will say tomorrow in the homily, his courage to move forward was rooted in a deep faith and a man of the church."
On June 20, additional viewing will occur from 10:00 a.m. until 1:00 p.m. at the cathedral.
A funeral mass will be celebrated at 2:00 p.m. Interment will follow in the Greensburg Catholic Cemetery.
The diocese says that if people can't make the funeral, it will be live-streamed on their website, YouTube, and social media pages.
More information can be found here.
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