A trial lawyer, husband, father - and now a priest.
Father Bernie Byrne, senior associate pastor at St. Wenceslaus Church in Omaha, said he felt called to the priesthood at age 67 after spending 39 years as an attorney in New York City and losing his wife, Marion, to leukemia in 1990.
Every beating heart is a call from Jesus to the pro-life cause, said the homilist at a Mass before the annual Walk for Life Jan. 28 in Lincoln.
"That is the knock of our Lord Jesus Christ," Father Sidney Bruggeman, pastor of St. Libory Church in St. Libory, said after inviting the faithful to feel their pulse.
The mid-court circle formed quietly and the crowd of 200 grew hushed, aware something was happening, but not sure what.
Girls in white uniforms and girls in red - opponents in a hard-fought basketball game just moments earlier - alternated in the circle Jan. 5, joining hands.
