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BY GRETCHEN KEISER
Staff Writer
ATLANTA--Father Edward Branch has spent 25 years sowing seeds for Christ in
the priesthood, primarily on college campuses and in the lives of young
Catholics.
Grambling State University in Louisiana and Catholic University of America
in Washington, D.C., were two campuses where he planted seeds for the kingdom
of God and nurtured the growth of students already walking in the light of
their Catholic faith.
Then the Louisville, Ky., priest, who began his ministry as a high school
teacher, was asked to come to the Atlanta Archdiocese to develop a stronger
Catholic presence on the campus of Atlanta University Center and to oversee the
construction of a permanent Catholic center amidst the historic buildings of
Morehouse, Spelman, Clark-Atlanta and Morris Brown, where African-American
students from across the country come to study.
He accepted the challenge, and the project and his priesthood reached high
water marks together.
As Father Branch, 54, celebrated his silver jubilee of ordination this year,
the new Catholic Center at Atlanta University Center, named Lyke House, was
dedicated Oct. 18, almost 10 years after he came to Atlanta.
“Lyke House is, so far, your shining achievement,” Father Giles
Conwill told Father Branch at the Mass celebrating his 25th anniversary.
“Thank you for letting the Lord build Lyke House through you.”
“Never has there been an edifice on a campus so beautifully dedicated
to black ministry as Lyke House,” said the homilist.
A scholar who teaches history at Morehouse College, Father Conwill said the
new Catholic Center, which stands next to the Robert Woodruff Library, will
lift up the presence of Jesus Christ as the Alpha and the Omega when men and
women search for the truth and study in every field of human wisdom.
“In this seat of learning, Lyke House stands out as a lighthouse,”
Father Conwill said, “reminding this community that Jesus is the
light.”
The homilist spoke of the priesthood, and its roots in the Old Testament,
where men were called to offer a sacrifice on behalf of the community to God.
The power of the Holy Spirit descends upon ordinary men at priestly
ordinations, he continued.
“The Holy Spirit’s power has come from that same upper room in
Jerusalem to every priestly ordination,” he said. “We must never
forget that priests are taken from among men and women. Priests are called
‘Father’ because of the spiritual generation of children.”
He spoke of Father Branch’s role in the priestly fraternity. Out of
402,000 Catholic priests in the world, 50,000 in the United States, he is among
only 350 black Catholic priests in this country. He has served as president of
the National Black Catholic Clergy Caucus.
One of six children, two of whom became priests, Father Branch grew up in
the Brightwood section of the nation’s capital. After serving eight years
as a Religious brother in the Xaverians, he was ordained for the Archdiocese of
Louisville in 1974.
After spending five years in Louisville parishes, Father Branch became
director of the Newman Center at Grambling State University and pastor of St.
Benedict the Black Church. He then spent six years as university chaplain and
director of campus ministry at Catholic University in Washington. He also
received his doctorate in ministry in 1991 from Howard University School of
Divinity.
Father Branch chose the parable of the seed and the sower for his 25th
jubilee Mass, held the day before the dedication Mass for Lyke House.
“Twenty-five years, we know, is a blink of an eye,” he told fellow
priests, students, family members and friends gathered for the Mass. “We
want to make sure we are about the business in the time we’ve got …
It is our business to be about the business of sowing.”
Grown men who first met Father Branch while they were students came to the
Mass and spoke of the way God used him to help them in times of spiritual
growth and crisis.
“He has a special gift of ministry to students,” said Patrick
Turner, an Atlanta University alumnus who met Father Branch 12 years ago at a
dinner hosted by Archbishop Eugene Marino, SSJ, to discuss the ministry needed
at AUC.
At that time he belonged to a Newman club based at St. Anthony’s Church
in the West End, Turner recalled, but “I was searching. Everything I
believed in was being challenged.”
“So much was cleared up for me spiritually in that one night, that it
has lasted me a lifetime,” Turner said. “Father Branch was there for
me at that time. He was there for me at graduation. He said, ‘You’re
graduating. What are you going to give back?’ … He talked to me about
agape. He talked to me about the sacrament of marriage. He was there for us
when our first son was born (premature) and passed and I did not know what to
do … Father Branch, I love you dearly. I thank God every day for bringing
you into my life.”
Mike Wetmore met Father Branch in 1981 when he was a junior transfer student
at Catholic University.
“He was fabulous,” Wetmore said. “He made going to Mass fun,
something that you looked forward to. He has an uncanny ability to relate
everyday life to the Gospel. He made me a better student, a better son and a
better person.”
When Wetmore graduated and started his own accounting business, Father
Branch found a way to give him a vote of confidence. “He was the first
client I ever had. His is the first tax return I ever did and that was
1982.” He still has Father Branch’s business in his firm.
The priest enabled him to embrace his Catholic faith, said Wetmore, who came
from Maryland for the occasion.
“He brought me in, but he did it in such a way that I decided to
go,” he said. “He allowed me to make the decision. He allowed me to
make what I call the leap of faith. That is his gift.”
Father Branch recalled that when he was first approached by Louisville
Archbishop Thomas Kelly about accepting the Atlanta assignment, the archbishop
said, “Don’t do it for me. Do it for the students.”
In the nearly 10 years since he has been in Atlanta, when the project has
gone slowly, when the archbishop for whom the center is named died suddenly and
prematurely, when discouragement and criticism came, Father Branch said it was
always the students who sustained his commitment to the ministry. “I
always met exceptional students … It was always a student who didn’t
know what they were saying, who said, ‘wait.’”
“Thanks just for being yourselves,” he said. “For being your
very competent, intelligent, loving, crazy selves.”
The homilist, Father Conwill, concluded his preaching by quoting the
Scripture that describes how beautiful the feet are of the one who brings the
Good News of the Gospel.
“We are so very proud of you. We pray you continue to grow into the
marvelous image God has created for you,” he said. “Ed, my brother,
you got some beautiful feet.”
The congregation responded with a standing ovation.
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