I recently watched the funeral of the transgender activist Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in Manhattan. A great controversy over the funeral ritual there is spreading throughout social media and even legacy media around the country and even the world. Some Catholics want to know why this happened. Meanwhile, the rector of the Cathedral celebrated a Mass of reparation in the aftermath of the rite. Others are angry that there is so much focus on this one event.
Raymond Arroyo called this a catastrophe. No, it was not. It was an incident and such situations may occur at times. Catastrophe? hardly. Let me explain.
Many years ago, a Boston based beer company held a contest in which people were to call in a radio show as they engaged in sex in the weirdest venues. Someone called from St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Obviously, this had negative repercussions. I refuse to this day to drink that beer. Of course, I rarely drink but I still to this day will not support that brand of beer, Boston based or not. If that was not a catastrophe, nothing is.
For years, St. Patrick’s had an obnoxious plain clothes security guard who would kick people out all the time. One of them was me. He cast me out for praying the rosary on my IPod in the Blessed Sacrament chapel behind the main altar. The app, by the way, was designed by a couple who hosted a program on the Catholic Channel which is run by the Archdiocese of New York.
I watched this guy over the years just kick people out constantly and could not figure out why. As a priest, even though for another diocese, I consider this man an embarrassment to our mission as a church. I believe he is no longer there.
So there are some other issues that the Cathedral had to deal with over the years.
A Boston pastor’s perspective
I am a pastor of a local parish in Boston. The university culture surrounds our rapidly changing neighborhood giving this area its history and flavor. My ministry is always in city parishes and this gives me a different take than many social media moguls.
City parishes serve city people and many criticizing this funeral ritual are suburban middle-class Catholics, that makes a huge difference. Funerals can be messy at times and funerals in cities can be messy more times than they are in upper middle class, homogenous, suburban parishes.
Occasionally, in both cases, you have the funeral that goes wrong. There is little you can do about it at the time. For example, one eulogist at a funeral I celebrated in a previous parish went on for forty-five minutes. After twenty, his sister stood up and told him to stop and he told her “No”.
Why did I not stop him myself? His sister tried and got no where. You do not want to start a war during a funeral, besides when he gets the bill for the cemetery staff waiting for his forty-five-minute eulogy, he won’t do it again. What makes it most ironic, his father, the deceased, would complain to the previous pastor if he went over five minutes in the homily.
I had to celebrate a funeral for a young suicide whose family was gang connected, his girlfriend was connected to a rival gang and the police warned me a war break out during the Mass. It did not happen.
Of course, you have the cases, occasionally, where you learn ten minutes before the funeral that the wife will be on the left side of the congregation and the mistress on the right, or vice versa.
Funerals at times are messy
Funerals, especially in the city, can be messy at times. You are dealing with serious emotions and realities that are chaotic in themselves because lives can be untidy. The issue is not how to prevent the chaos but how to work with it for the glory of God.
First, do not miss that the priest was wearing purple, it is one of the three colors allowed at a funeral Mass, the others are white (which is the color of the pall on the casket) and black—the color used prior to the Vatican II liturgy.
Violet is a penitential color, that was a significant detail in the funeral.
Second, this was a funeral service, the only difference between what happened here and what happens in a funeral home is the venue. The funeral home is the place to express some of the emotions that happened here. The expressions would be acceptable there because it is not a liturgical event. If a liturgy happened afterwards in the funeral home, it would receive more respect because the emotions would have been expressed beforehand.
It is my understanding that the choice to hold a service and not a Mass was a last-minute decision.
Second, although some people frown on this, I always have the eulogy first. This way, I have a better understanding of the deceased and the emotion related to eulogies occurs prior to the rite itself. This ritual ended with the eulogies and this seems to be where there is much consternation on the part of commentators. In the Archdiocese of Boston, eulogies have to be no more than five minutes and there can only be one speaker. This is the reason why. Technically, eulogies should never happen at a Mass but they do.
Funeral homilies are best ad libbed
The priest read his homily. Now granted, I know radio and our parish has a radio broadcast/podcast so ad libbing is one of my fortes. In this situation, ad libbing would be essential because you want to tailor your homily to the congregation. You want to reach out to them to help them understand what the funeral is all about and their relationship to Jesus in light of the deceased.
I always explain the meaning of a funeral in each one I celebrate. The congregation comes together and asks Our Lord to make good on the promise He made at the deceased’s baptism: “Come follow me and I will lead you into eternal life.” Just because many people were vocal and may be resistant against the Church does not mean there were not some who could be touched by the right words in the right context. I will also explain the funeral symbols. The candle, the holy water and the pall are about baptism.
I celebrated a funeral Mass where it became apparent that many people were medical professionals without a strong belief in God, so I used the opportunity to bring out Pope Benedict’s teaching on Genesis and touch on the Church’s understand of evolution in light of eternal life and the love of Christ. I received a comment from a person happy about the homily who never knew the Church believed in evolution.
What is wrong with applause?
One of the obvious concerns of this funeral ritual is the applause. Many people grow angry when they hear it at a Mass and explain that it should not occur. However, they do not seem to understand why it is out of place. That would have been a great opportunity to explain why we do not applaud during most Catholic rituals. Probably the congregation would ignore the presider but still the words could be said.
Applause unless it is part of the rite, which it is in some situations, for example ordinations, may be a great way to show your approval of something someone said but it takes the focus off of God and puts it on the person for whom you are applauding. In fact, the worst thing you can do after a homily is to applaud because, as one pastor once explained to me, that means the priest just told you what you wanted to hear. He needs to tell you what leads you closer to God even if you do not want to hear it.
Finally, the behind the scenes issues many seek to know may explain a lot of what happened. Why did not the Cathedral staff know about the nature of the deceased or the congregation? No one brings up the obvious, the funeral home. Since there was a body at the funeral, you know there was a funeral home running it. What kind of communication occurred between the Cathedral staff involved in intake and the funeral home staff? If they have a good relationship, the funeral home will make sure the staff is aware of any issues prior to the ritual.
Another issue is the priest must read the obituary before he heads over to the church to celebrate the funeral. This is not to prevent trouble but rather to show the mourners that you care enough about the deceased to learn what you can. The starting point is always the obituary. You can call the family ahead of time as well.
Ministry can be messy
Yes, this funeral was problematic to a point that led some people who are used to perfect funerals to be upset. Ministry by its nature is messy at times and the role of the parish staff is to make sure everything works to the glory of God. When the parish ministry train goes off the rails, it is time to ask how that happened and was it unavoidable. In some cases, changes could be made ahead of time, including this one, in others, you leave it all up to the glory of God.
The Cathedral rector celebrated a Mass of reparation. I understand another was celebrated many years ago after the sex for beer incident, maybe he needs to celebrate a whole bunch of them for a security guard who spent his daily shift embarrassing good Catholics attending the Cathedral. They suffered being told they had to leave in a most brusk manner: “Let’s go bud!” over and over again all day through every shift for years.
Meanwhile, the whole discussion on social media about this event overlooks several things. I am sure that many members of the communities represented by the deceased who may not have attended the service became angered at the way the mourners they associate with treated this sacred space. I include those who never planned to attend Mass ever. Second, if you look for ministry wrapped up in a bow and perfect with no mess at all, you are looking for a sterile ministry and good ministry is never sterile.
Fr. Robert J Carr is the pastor of St. Anthony Parish in Allston, MA.
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