Michael Gunnison’s Bequest Extends Family Support of CNEWA

When Michael Gunnison was in elementary school, he used to pick up his family’s mail at the post office—and very much enjoyed reading Catholic Near East, the magazine from one of the many Catholic organizations that his mother supported. Now, as a federal prosecutor on special assignment in the Middle East, he is making a bequest in support of CNEWA’s mission.

“I don’t know for sure how much CNEWA influenced my career, but the articles and photography in Catholic Near East were inspiring and found a permanent place in my imagination at a young age,” says Michael, who currently lives and works in Qatar. “Contributing to CNEWA is the best way for me to support an organization I’ve known my whole life.”

Michael says he chose to give via a bequest partially because it “has no effect on my monthly budget.”

“This bequest connects me to a path of giving started by my mother and ensures that sometime in the future I will continue to help CNEWA in a way that my children will also remember,” he says.

Michael’s family is from St. Barnabas Parish in the Bronx, New York. His father Joseph served in the Army in WW II and later as a New York Police Department detective. His mother Winifred worked for Catholic War Relief Services and later as a volunteer at the Shrine of Our Lady of Fatima in Washington, New Jersey. His father died a month before Michael’s first communion.

“After that, mom devoted her life to the church,” Michael says. “She sought to combat spiritual poverty while embracing poverty of the material kind. She used her NYPD death benefit to construct two small churches in India, which she named for St. Joseph (my father’s name). She also donated her diamond engagement ring that my father had given her to the Society for the Propagation of the Faith.”

Michael obtained a bachelor’s degree in international affairs from George Washington University. After attending law school at St. John’s University in Queens, he was appointed as an assistant U.S. attorney in Brooklyn. He focused increasingly on cases involving national security—and volunteered for overseas assignments beginning in 2004 in Iraq. He has lived in the Middle East for nearly ten years, working in a dozen countries. His six children have also lived and studied in the Middle East, and three of them received the sacrament of confirmation at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Abu Dhabi—capital of the United Arab Emirates.

“During Holy Week in Jerusalem, I once had the privilege to attend Mass on Easter morning with about ten others inside in the aedicule built around Christ’s tomb in the Church of the Holy Sepulcher,” Michael says. “It was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity; and yet it somehow seemed very familiar to me, thanks to Catholic Near East and CNEWA.

“What impresses me most about CNEWA is that it does good works across all faiths and denominations. More than ever, Christians are particularly vulnerable amid conditions in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon, Egypt, Sudan, Yemen, and elsewhere. Yet we know that Jesus wants us to help all people regardless of faith, gender, race, ethnicity, and political leanings. CNEWA has a proven record alleviating suffering and supporting at-risk communities since 1927.”

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