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<\/a> Before the big race on Sunday, Aug. 31, some of the drivers, pit crews and their families in town for the Detroit Grand Prix will gather for Mass on the upper floor of the Belle Isle Casino. <\/p>\nCelebrating the 11 a.m. Eucharist will be Fr. Phil De Rea, MSC, of IRL (Indy Racing League) Ministry, once dubbed the \u201cracetrack reverend\u201d by the Chicago Tribune. <\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s for the racing community, but it\u2019s open to the public,\u201d Fr. De Rea says. <\/p>\n
In his 37 years of ministering to the racing community, the 66-year-old Missionaries of the Sacred Heart priest has come to be a friend and spiritual adviser to many of those involved in motor sports. <\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019ve been doing this since 1971, when my long-time friend Mario Andretti got me to go with him to look at the new Pocono International Raceway (in Pennsylvania),\u201d Fr. De Rea says. <\/p>\n
Both Fr. De Rea and Andretti grew up in Nazareth, Pa. <\/p>\n
Fr. De Rea\u2019s ministry to the racing community was given a more formal shape with the founding of IRL Ministry in 1996. Besides going to the racing events to celebrate Mass, IRL also offers year-round Bible study programs. <\/p>\n
And Fr. De Rea has become involved in other aspects of the lives of those in the racing community. \u201cI\u2019ve gained a lot of friends over the years I\u2019ve been doing this. I\u2019ve baptized a lot of their kids and presided at their marriages,\u201d he says. <\/p>\n
Gil De Ferran and Emerson Fittipaldi are among the well-known drivers at whose weddings Fr. De Rea has officiated. And this aspect of his ministry has sometimes taken him across the Atlantic Ocean, as when he conducted the 2001 wedding of driver Dario Franchetti to actress Ashley Judd in Scotland or this year\u2019s wedding of Scott and Emma Dixon in England. <\/p><\/blockquote>\n
Check out the link<\/a> for the rest, including some terrific pictures.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The gentleman pictured below has a special ministry to race car drivers in Michigan. (Perhaps he also enjoys a good game of checkers? Gotta love that stole.) Check out — ha! — his story right here: Before the big race on Sunday, Aug. 31, some of the drivers, pit crews and their families in town…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":204,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2927","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vocations"],"yoast_head":"\n
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Prior to that, Deacon Greg worked for 26 years as a writer and producer for CBS News, where he contributed to \"The CBS Evening News with Katie Couric,\" \"60 Minutes II,\" \"48 Hours,\" (Emmy Award, Writers Guild of America Award) and \"Sunday Morning.\" He was co-writer for the acclaimed documentary \"9\/11,\" hosted by Robert DeNiro. (Emmy Award, Christopher Award, Peabody Award, Writers Guild of America Award.) His radio essays were featured in the bestselling book \"Deadlines and Datelines\" by Dan Rather. He's also a two-time winner of the Catholic Press Association Award. Other places you may find him: AMERICA, U.S. CATHOLIC, CATHOLIC DIGEST, REALITY (Redemptorist Communications) and THE BROOKLYN TABLET. He also contributes homiletic reflections to the parish resource CONNECT!, published by Liturgical Publications. In November 2009, he began serving a three-year term as a consultant to the Communications Committee of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB). Deacon Greg grew up in Maryland (Go Terps!) but he and his wife today live in the beautiful borough of Queens, New York. You can contact Deacon Greg at dcngreg@gmail.com.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/author\/gkandra"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/204"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2927"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2927\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2927"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2927"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/deaconsbench\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2927"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}