BROOKLYN, N.Y. (OSV News) — It’s one of the most unlikely friendships you can imagine, and the way it came about is just as surreal. A retired Brooklyn priest and a president of the United States struck up a relationship because the clergyman took an interest in the president’s family gravesite.
Father Frank Mann and Donald Trump, former president and now president-elect, have become so close that the Brooklyn-born priest has been invited to deliver the closing benediction at Trump’s inauguration ceremony Jan. 20 in Washington.
“It’s mind-boggling. I can’t believe it,” Father Mann told The Tablet, news outlet of the Diocese of Brooklyn. He said he was recently contacted by an assistant to Trump and a member of the inaugural committee who asked him to deliver the blessing right after the inaugural address.
“Being asked to offer the closing benediction is such an indescribable honor,” Father Mann said. “It’s taken me longer than I thought to process having been chosen to be such a significant part of the inauguration’s moment in history.”
It all began a few years ago when Father Mann was walking through a Queens cemetery and came upon the gravesite of Trump’s parents and grandparents.
“It was slightly overgrown,” Father Mann recalled. “I thought this shouldn’t be. This is a historic site. So, I went and bought a weed whacker and some decorations and fixed up the plot. I took a photo and eventually sent it to President Trump.”
A few weeks passed, and Father Mann got a call out of the blue. It was Trump. He asked Father Mann why he was decorating the family grave. After he explained his interest, he said the president sounded amazed and told him they would have to get together the next time he was in New York.
Father Mann said he was thrilled to have been called by the president, who he knew to have frequently visited his parents’ gravesite before his election in 2016. Trump speaks fondly of his parents and his older brother, who is interred in the same plot. True to his word, Trump called Father Mann shortly after not being reelected in 2020 and invited him to Trump Tower for a meeting and sit-down.
“He was the nicest, down-to-earth guy,” Father Mann said. “There are no airs about him. He has a great sense of humor. He’s a regular guy.
“He asked what he could do for me, and I told him that I didn’t want anything.”
Father Mann only requested autographs for his memorabilia collection. The two also posed for a photo high in the Fifth Avenue skyscraper, with Central Park in the background.
During the summer of 2022, Father Mann was invited to an overnight stay at the president’s summer residence in Bedminster, New Jersey. The following summer, Trump bought dinner at his country club for the priest and a friend. Father Mann also made the trip to Bedminster to bless the grave of Ivana Trump at the golf club and recalled receiving a touching “thank you” from Trump’s daughter Ivanka.
Later that year, when the priest published a children’s book, “The Wounded Butterfly,” Trump endorsed it on his Truth Social platform. During the recent presidential campaign, Father Mann attended Trump rallies at Nassau Coliseum and Madison Square Garden.
Father Mann said Trump stays in touch via phone calls, sometimes asking the priest for his thoughts on conversations he had with others and often asking what he could do to win the Catholic vote. According to The Associated Press, Trump won 54% of the Catholic vote in 2024. Father Mann said he believes Trump is speaking a lot more about God since surviving two assassination attempts this summer because “I think he sees the hand of God in all this.”
“I think he feels he was spared because God has a plan for him,” Father Mann said.
While Father Mann loves to tell friends about his acquaintance with Trump, he said many, including some in his own family, don’t believe him and think he manipulated the photos.
When he delivers his benediction Jan. 20, it will be personal. He will be asking for a blessing for his friend, the president of the United States, the new vice president and the country they will lead.
