[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 87 (Thursday, June 21, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S6599-S6600]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       THE REVEREND PHILIP BRANON

 Mr. LEAHY. Mr. President, Vermont is a very small State with 
special people. For those of us who live there we have the opportunity 
to get to know many within our State. One who has given his life to the 
people of his community and parish is Father Philip Branon and I would 
like my colleagues to have the opportunity to read this recent article 
about him that was in the Burlington Free Press on April 8, 2001.
  The article follows:

               Vt. Priest Celebrates 50 Years on the Job

                           (By Sally Pollak)

       South Hero--Philip Branon was a teen-ager when the priest 
     at his local church, St. Patrick in Fairfield, called him 
     into the rectory and suggested he consider the priesthood.
       ``It must be because I was a pious child,'' the Rev. Branon 
     said, laughing at the thought, ``Or maybe my mother told him 
     to. I don't know.''
       If it were his mother's idea it was a sound one, the right 
     choice for the sixth of 10 Branon children--a Fairfield 
     farmboy who still associates Sunday Mass with morning chores.
       Branon, 74, will mark the 50th anniversary of his 
     ordination into the priesthood Wednesday. He has spent more 
     than half that time--30 years--serving the Catholic community 
     of Grand Isle County, celebrating Mass, comforting the dying, 
     baptizing babies. He joins one other Vermont priest, the Rev. 
     George Dupuis of Arlington, who is still active after half a 
     century.
       If Branon anticipated 50 years of anything, it was nothing 
     more than living.
       ``I'm just very grateful that I have lived for the 50 
     years, and that I have good health,'' Branon said. ``I also 
     have the wonderful privilege of being brought up in a good 
     family with a lot of help and warmth from my brothers and 
     sisters.''
       Branon celebrated his first Mass on April 15, 1951, 
     reciting the service in Latin in St. Patrick Church, his 
     childhood parish. The Rev. William Tennien, the pastor who 
     suggested Branon's priesthood, shepherded Burlington drivers 
     who couldn't get through the muddy Franklin County roads to 
     the event.


                             over the years

       Since that first service, Branon has celebrated more than 
     17,000 Masses, an average of seven a week. He will say 
     once again this morning, at St. Joseph Church in Grand 
     Isle, one of three churches in his parish. The service 
     will be followed by a celebration of his priesthood.
       Alice Toth, a South Hero teacher, plans to attend. She has 
     been a parishioner at St. Rose in South Hero, Branon's home 
     church, for 33 years. Toth appreciates his ``special gift'' 
     for reaching the elderly and ill.
       ``He's a very caring pastor,'' she said. ``And he's a true 
     Vermonter in the sense that he's really close to nature in 
     his sermon and his message.''
       Branon's first church was St. Paul in Barton. Then Mass was 
     in Latin and his sermons were delivered in French and 
     English.
       He had no choice: He was informed by the Bishop that he 
     would not be ordained if he didn't learn French.
       He picked up sufficient French in conversation with other 
     students at St. John's Seminary in Boston, ``I got along well 
     in Barton,'' he said. ``Even though I didn't always know what 
     I was saying.''
       Branon became the pastor at the University of Vermont's 
     Newman Center in 1957, and served there for 14 years. He 
     called it ``the best place a priest could be'' when the 
     changes of Vatican II were introduced.
       At UVM, bringing together his two loves--family and the 
     Church--he asked a wood-worker from the Fairfield hills, 
     Frank Moran, to carve a crucifix from a piece of black cherry 
     that belonged to Branon's father. It remains at the chapel 
     today.


                           Good Vermont stock

       Thirty years ago, Branon moved to the Champlain Islands, 
     where he lives in South Hero and serves three island 
     churches. He has chosen to stay because he loves where he 
     lives, has firm roots in the community, and is not far from 
     family and his childhood home.
       ``His contributions to the islands cannot be 
     overestimated,'' said Max Reader, the retired pastor of the 
     Congregational Church in South Hero.
       ``He's down to earth.'' Reader said, ``He's quite honest 
     and he's very understanding. He's of good old Vermont stock 
     and he's just got all these good qualities that make him a 
     very, very fine priest.''
       Branon feels that perhaps his most important contributions 
     are made at funerals. He estimates that he has presided over 
     15 to 20 during each of the last 30 years.
       ``I'd rather do funerals than weddings anytime,'' he said 
     Thursday morning after Mass. ``At a funeral, it's all honest. 
     It's really and truly a teachable moment, the best chance for 
     a priest to talk to a number of people who don't go to 
     church.''
       He considers the most important part of his job bringing 
     Communion and comfort to the elderly and ill who can't get to 
     church. Thursday after Mass, Branon--a slow walker and 
     deliberate talker--placed a bible and some bread in his Chevy 
     Corsica and prepared for a dozen Communion house calls.
       ``It comes down to the purpose of our ministry,'' he said. 
     ``The purpose of the priesthood is to help people go to 
     heaven. When you're dealing with sick people and old people, 
     you're pretty apt to be dealing with people who are close to 
     it.
       ``Over the years, you find out that sick people know 
     they're sick. You try to help people understand it, help them 
     face death.''
       The deaths are not only a time for comfort and compassion, 
     but a chance to learn about the families who live on the 
     islands. ``If I had written down two or three lines about 
     every person I buried,'' Branon said, ``I'd have a wonderful 
     history of the islands.''


                             Farming family

       The history of the Church and his family are of great 
     importance to Branon. His family has been farming in 
     Fairfield for about 130 years, working a farm that was 
     started by his great-grandmother, Mary O'Neill Branon.
       She was widowed in the 1860s when her blacksmith husband, 
     Irish immigrant Anthony Branon, was killed by the kick of a 
     horse. Mary Branon took her two children and walked 17 miles 
     from Swanton to Fairfield, driving cattle as she went.
       Branon and his nine siblings--seven brothers and two 
     sisters--grew up on the nearby

[[Page S6600]]

     farm settled by Mary O'Neill Branon's son, Edward. He fondly 
     recalls the Sunday mornings of his childhood, a satisfying 
     mix of chores, Mass and fox hunting.
       His mother was devout, but it is his father's definition of 
     sin that has stayed with the priest: ``He said, `I was 
     brought up to figure you can't commit a sin unless you want 
     to,' '' Branon recalled.
       And it was his father, brother of a priest and a nun, who 
     took the time to fall to his knees and pray before going to 
     the barn to care for a sick horse.
       These stories of family and faith nourish Branon as he 
     approaches 75, as he makes his rounds to comfort the elderly 
     and ill.
       He has no plans to retire, no plans to leave South Hero. 
     ``I owe it to God and the people to keep going as long as I'm 
     worth anything,'' he said.
       In his parish home, alone at night, Branon thinks of his 
     own mortality and finds comfort in these words: ``May the all 
     powerful Lord grant me a happy life and a peaceful death.''
       Maybe not the exact words of the night prayers, concedes 
     the priest with 50 years' experience. But close enough.
                                  ____


                              Branon File

       Who: The Rev. Phillip J. Branon
       Occupation: Catholic priest ordained 50 years ago, April 
     11, 1951.
       Age: 74.
       Family: Branon is the sixth of 10 children of E. Frank and 
     Mary Branon. He grew up on a farm in Fairfield.
       Education: St. Mary's High School in St. Albans, graduated 
     1943; St. John's Seminary in Boston, ordained in 1951.
       Career: St. Paul's Parish, Barton, 1951-1953; Cathedral of 
     the Immaculate Conception, Burlington, 1953-1955; Vermont 
     Catholic Charities, Burlington, 1955-1957; Newman Center, the 
     University of Vermont, 1957-1971. Since 1971 he has been 
     serving at St. Rose de Lima, South Hero; St. Benedict Labre, 
     North Hero; and St. Joseph, Grand Isle.
       Open House: An open house in his honor will be held today 
     at St. Joseph Church from 10 a.m. to 1 p.m., after Branon 
     celebrates Mass.
                                  ____


                          Vermont Priest Facts

       Full-time priests in Vermont: 101.
       Active priests with 50 years of service or more: two.
       Vermont priests ordained 50 years ago or more: 24. Of 
     those, two are active and 22 are retired. Eight of the 
     retirees fill in as substitutes.
       50th anniversary: Wednesday is the 50th anniversary of the 
     ordination of the Rev. Phillip J. Branon, a priest at three 
     parishes in Grand Isle County. Two other Vermont priests 
     celebrate half a century or ordination on Wednesday, though 
     they have retired: Monsignor Raymond Adams of Essex Junction 
     and the Rev. Robert Whalen of Poultney and Steamboat Springs, 
     Colo.

                          ____________________