CV NEWS FEED // A Catholic priest recently wrote on how the scandalous funeral service at the historic St. Patrick’s Cathedral could have been avoided, and what should be done to prevent similar instances in the future.
In a February 18 op-ed for Catholic World Report, Fr. Peter M.J. Stravinskas reflected on the scandalous actions of several organizers and participants at the funeral service for Cecilia Gentili, at the New York City St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
Gentili was a man who identified as a “transgender” woman, was a “transgender activist,” and a self-professed atheist. The organizer of the funeral said he deliberately kept Gentili’s “transgender identity” a secret when planning with church officials. The funeral for Gentili took place on February 15.
During the funeral, several people giving a eulogy praised Gentili as “St. Cecilia, Mother of all Whores.” The New York Times reported that “Mass cards and a picture near the altar showed a haloed Ms. Gentili surrounded by the Spanish words for ‘transvestite,’ ‘whore,’ ‘blessed’ and ‘mother’ above the text of Psalm 25.”
The pastor of St. Patrick’s, Fr. Enrique Salvo, issued a statement two days after the funeral service denouncing the actions as “scandalous.” Salvo added that the “Cathedral only knew that family and friends were requesting a funeral Mass for a Catholic, and had no idea our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive way.”
Stravinskas praised Salvo’s response, especially for stating “that a Mass of Reparation had been celebrated to atone for all the blasphemies and sacrileges.”
“Disappointing was the fact that the Mass was not open to the public and offered by the Cardinal himself,” Stravinskas noted. “It seems to me that the public outrage required a public act of atonement.”
Stravinskas explained how the scandalous funeral service was “avoidable,” and offered several points for churches going forward.
The first step in avoiding such a scandal, Stranvinskas argued, would be for the Cathedral desk personnel to look up the name given by family members or friends when they first requested a funeral service.
“Now, if I had been at the reception desk that day, I can assure you that I would never had heard of ‘Cecilia Gentili,’” Stranvinskas wrote. “On my part, however, I would have entered that name into the search field and discovered–oh my!–that ‘she’ was born a man, was an avowed atheist, and an activist on behalf of every kind of sexual perversion imaginable.”
Shifting tones, Stravinskas wrote, “We have been told that ‘she’ had reconciled with Christ and His Church in her final days (given the many lies that led up to the day, can we suppose that to be true?). At any rate, if it is true, that’s wonderful; we Catholics have always rejoiced in deathbed conversions.”
Had the Cathedral known this information, Stranvinskas argued, the proper response should have been a “referral to a parish church, where a small, private ceremony could have been held (that’s what is often done for ‘mobbed up’ guys).”
This response “would not have been acceptable to the ‘organizer,’” who “wanted St. Patrick’s, precisely because it is St. Patrick’s,” Stranvinskas wrote. “We also must note that the Cathedral doesn’t host thousands of funerals a year; indeed, there is always a screening or vetting process. Who dropped the ball?”
Stranvinskas posed several other questions, such as where the security guards and ushers were on the day of the funeral. He questioned why several hardly-dressed attendees were not escorted out, and questioned whether the ushers were perhaps told not to say anything at all. If the latter were the case, Stranvinskas wrote, who told them not to say anything?
Moving forward, Stranvinskas urged churches to “practice due diligence.”
“As a pastor, I always knew whom I was being asked to bury,” Stranvinskas wrote, adding that it is “better to endure private wrath for a negative decision than have to offer endless public apologies in the aftermath.”
Additionally, Stranvinskas argued that “it is high time to eliminate eulogies from church buildings. They are uncontrollable disasters on all too many fronts.”
Even reviewing a “prepared text is no guarantee that it will be followed,” Stranvinskas wrote, and “even the best persons can break down in the moment. Eulogies belong at the funeral home or the gravesite. In point of fact, the rubrics for the Mass of Christian Burial specifically prohibit eulogies.”
Stranvinskas added that “we need to re-think the nearly automatic offering of a Funeral Mass to all comers,” especially because funerals pose significant “possibilities for disaster, distraction, and dismay.”
“A service at the funeral home or a committal ceremony at the cemetery can provide the presence of the Church quite adequately (texts part of the Rite of Christian Burial),” he wrote. “If Grandma was herself a serious Catholic, schedule a Memorial Mass within a week or a month to commend her soul to the Lord with the offering of the Eucharistic Sacrifice.”
Stranvinskas also wrote that Catholics need to remember the sacredness of churches, which are set apart “to give glory to the Triune God, not to make us feel good.” Catholics should recognize that churches are holy spaces, he wrote, and act accordingly with reverence.
