Services for Msgr George J. Brubaker, who died Sept. 7 at 78, will be held Sept. 14 at the Cathedral of St. Peter in Wilmington. A visitation will begin at 10:30 a.m., and the Mass of Christian Burial will follow at noon. The cathedral is located at Sixth and West streets.
Msgr. Brubaker was born in Ventnor, N.J., and was raised in Wilmington. He attended Christ Our King School before beginning studies for the priesthood at St. Charles High School in Catonsville, Md. He was ordained May 28, 1980, at St. Paul Church, Wilmington.
In a reflection he wrote about his vocation, Msgr. Brubaker recalled that his mother used to remind him to pray for his older sister, Monica, who had died a few hours after her birth.
“I am a priest today because of Monica. She helped me pray and taught me how to listen to the Lord,” he wrote.
He was associate pastor at Good Shepherd Parish, Perryville, Md., and St. John the Baptist-Holy Angels Parish, Newark, both in the 1980s. He did not return to parish ministry until 1999, when he became pastor of St. John the Apostle Parish in Milford and its mission, St. Bernadette Church in Harrington. He was transferred to Our Lady of Fatima Parish in New Castle in 2012, and two years later he added pastoral duties at St. Paul Parish, Delaware City.
Msgr. Brubaker spent many years in other ministries in the Diocese of Wilmington and beyond. He was appointed in 1983 as a judge on the Diocesan Tribunal. In 1988, he took up studies on canon law at Catholic University of America, and when he returned to the diocese, he was assigned full-time as a judge in the Tribunal. He also was judicial vicar for the Marriage Tribunal from 2001-15.
In 1992, he was appointed diocesan director of Catholic Relief Services, and five years later he became director of church affairs for CRS with headquarters in Baltimore.
Msgr. Brubaker, who retired from active ministry in 2023, served on the Priests’ Council, as diocesan master of ceremonies and on the diocesan Finance Council. He was an Air Force chaplain for more than two decades with the Delaware National Guard, reaching the rank of lieutenant colonel. He was named a monsignor in 2010.
His work with Catholic Relief Services and the military took him around the world. He visited refugee camps in Rwanda, combat areas in Kuwait and a military hospital in Germany. He told The Dialog in 2005 that his experiences counseling injured soldiers had an impact on him.
“I think I process death and the wounded through prayer,” he said. “At least that’s what I do when I encounter them. I try to bring them with me to the Lord in my mind and heart. That’s all I can do, but I do think it helps me process the emotion.
The idea of becoming a priest took hold during his years as a student at Christ Our King School, where the late Msgr. Paul Taggart, who was vocation director for the diocese, would meet with students.
“The meetings were fun and did help my resolve, mostly because there were other boys from my neighborhood who were going to the meetings and were thinking about the seminary,” he told The Dialog.
He attended a high school seminary and three years of college seminary before leaving and finishing his college education at Duquesne University in Pittsburgh. He was away from the seminary for seven years, working as a probation and parole officer for the state of Delaware. He said that in meeting with the convicts, he could see that many of them “have no sense of [their own] value. What they really need is a priest.”
Msgr. Brubaker will be buried at All Saints Cemetery, 6001 Kirkwood Hwy., Wilmington.
