Reich Wing Catholics Bent Out of Shape About Activist Funeral

[47of74]

The Roman Church got its cassocks in a knot over an activist getting a funeral at St. Patrick's Cathedral.

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The day after Valentine’s Day, a massive, fabulous funeral was held at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York to honor the late, great Cecila Gentili. It was a service filled with love and tears of laughter and sadness, not to mention a performance by actor and singer Billy Porter (the two had been castmates on the groundbreaking television series “Pose”). St. Patrick’s Cathedral is perhaps the most famous Catholic church outside of the Vatican. Gentili’s friends chose it for her funeral for that reason — her friend who planned the funeral said that because Gentili was “magic for our community … that’s why I picked a place as iconic as St. Patrick’s.”

“Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t have a crowd that’s this well turned out,” the priest proclaimed, as hundreds of queer people came together to mourn the loss of a leader, a sister, a woman who was transgender and who clawed herself out of a hostile homeland, sex slavery and poverty to become an activist, actress and inspiration to the many vulnerable people she fought for every waking moment of her life.

But the Very Rev. Enrique Salvo, pastor of St. Patrick’s, did not mince words in a statement he issued from the Archdiocese of New York’s office only days later.

“Thanks to so many who have let us know they share our outrage over the scandalous behavior at a funeral here at St. Patrick’s Cathedral earlier this week,” the statement read. “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. That such a scandal occurred at ‘America’s Parish Church’ makes it worse; that it took place as Lent was beginning, the annual forty-day struggle with the forces of sin and darkness, is a potent reminder of how much we need the prayer, reparation, repentance, grace, and mercy to which this holy season invites us.”

Allison Hope wrote this article and made it clear how judgmental and how hypocritical the Roman Church was being here.  And that asshole Salvo might want to think twice about calling his St. Patrick's "America's parish."  It is not my parish.  When I visited NYC I saw it from the outside but did not go in.  I instead went up to the Cathedral of St. John as that was a far more welcoming place.  Plus when people insist on designating a person, building, or organization as America's anything I don't like that.  (Back during the pandemic it made me really uncomfortable when people on our side started calling Dr. Faucci America's Doctor because it put him on the same level as people like America's Dad or America's mayor). 

This whole story reminded me of something too.  A few weeks back in a sermon the rector said our parish would never turn its back on anyone needing a funeral and would do it for them no matter what.  This is reason one million of why I'm glad I swam the Thames.  

Edited February 20 by 47of74