“For the sparrow has found a home, the turtledove a nest for herself where she will lay her young—even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God.” (Psalm 83:3)
On February 6, a transgender man named Cecilia Gentili, died. (May God remember him forever in His kingdom!) Early in his life, while battling a heroin addiction, Gentili turned to prostitution in order to make a living. Happily, he eventually got clean. Unhappily, he came to glorify sex work and began working as a professional activist for various LGBT causes. On February 15, Gentili’s friends organized a funeral Mass at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York. The funeral was attended mostly by fellow drag queens and left-wing activists; the service itself was packed full of blasphemies. The singing of the Ave Maria was interrupted by chants of “Ave Cecilia.” Gentili was referred to as “St. Cecilia, Mother of All Whores.” And so on.
According to a report in The Pillar,
Ceyenne Doroshow, a friend who organized the funeral told the New York Times that Gentili—reportedly a self-professed atheist—had wanted to have a funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral because the church is “an icon.” Doroshow did not tell employees at St. Patrick’s that Gentili was a biological male who identified as transgender, or that the funeral liturgy would include elements of political activism, or that the deceased would be celebrated as the “mother of all whores” during the liturgy.
Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the Archbishop of New York, has since apologized for the blasphemies committed in his cathedral. On February 17, has celebrated a Mass of Reparation at the Cathedral, which is meant to atone for the blasphemes committed in the sanctuary and to cleanse the sacred space of profanation. Still, many questions remain.
For starters, the service was celebrated by the Cathedral’s rector, Fr. Edward Dougherty—and presumably Cecilia Gentili was not a regular parishioner. So, why didn’t Fr. Dougherty or his team do any sort of research into Gentili’s background? Why didn’t the Cathedral’s administration vet the people organizing the funeral? Does anyone believe they had no whiff that Gentili and his friends were radical LGBT activists? Fr. James Martin, the Jesuit priest and veteran gay-rights activist, was approached for comment by the Times before the funeral even took place. How did the Cathedral staff remain totally ignorant?
Moreover, why didn’t Fr. Dougherty stop the service once it got out of control? How is he being disciplined? What protocols are the Archdiocese of New York implementing to ensure that such an atrocity never takes place again?
These questions may sound harsh. We might find this attitude exclusive and elitist. After all, didn’t Jesus care more about welcoming strangers and outcasts than ritual purity?
Well… no, not really.
Christianity, of course, is all about love: love for God and love for our fellow man. We show love for our neighbor by giving food to the hungry, water to the thirsty, clothing to the naked, etc. We show our love for God, meanwhile, by keeping His commandments and worshipping His holiness. Remember the Cleansing of the Temple, from the Gospel of John:
Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, “Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!” Then His disciples remembered that it was written, “Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.”
We should note that, in His love for God, Christ did not forget the love of man. On the contrary. According to Jewish (and Christian!) law, those moneychangers were committing a sin—a terrible sin—by profaning God’s house. Christ prevented them from digging themselves a deeper hole and defended the sacred space all at once.
This “zeal for God’s house” is still reflected in the Orthodox and Eastern Catholic liturgies. Just before the reading of the Nicene Creed, the Deacon cries: “The doors, the doors!” Once upon a time, this was a sign for all non-Christians, including the catechumens, to leave the church. Only those who had been initiated into the Sacred Mysteries could witness what came next: the Liturgy of the Holy Eucharist. In fact, only the altar party (priests, deacons, etc.) witness the actual consecration of the bread and wine. This part of the liturgy takes place behind the iconostasis: a wall of icons separating the sanctuary from the congregation, reminiscent of the veil that shrouded the Holy of Holies in the Temple of Jerusalem.
For most Westerners—including most Catholics—this seems strange, almost cagey. We associate secrecy with shame. When we think of “secret rites,” we imagine Mormons holed up in their temples their magic underwear or Freemasons doing strange rituals in top hats and aprons. Yet this was standard practice throughout the Early Church, everywhere in the world, for the first centuries. Why? Because the first Christians could not bear the thought of the Sacraments—or the church building itself, which the Orthodox still call a temple—being violated or profaned.
This fear has mostly left us Westerners, since the Christian Faith has been practiced safely in these lands for well over a thousand years. In the East, however, there is the constant threat of infiltration, desecration, and martyrdom. Christians in the Near East have been contending with jihadists since the seventh century. The Greek Church suffered waves of invasion from barbarians, Persians, and Arabs before it was finally subjected by the Ottoman Turks. And the Russian Church has regularly suffered persecution by its own government, be it “reformist” tsars or Soviet communists.
That’s why, to this day, Eastern churches use the Communion Troparion: “O Son of God, receive me today as a partaker of Your mystic Supper, for I shall not betray Your mysteries to Your enemies…”
Mark my words: Cecilia Gentili’s funeral is only the beginning. It’s a watershed moment. As his friends and family announced in a press release, they had chosen to hold his funeral at St. Patrick’s in order to desecrate the space:
We brought precious life and radical joy to the Cathedral in historic defiance of the Church’s hypocrisy and anti-trans hatred. Cecilia Gentili’s funeral service, which filled the pews in ways the Cathedral only can during Easter service and NYPD funerals, was a reflection of the love she had for her community and a testament to the impact of her tireless advocacy.
The funeral was not only a ritual celebration of Gentili’s life. It was also a ritual humiliation of the Christian Faith.
Many would argue that the Church must be willing to risk a little embarrassment in order to reach those “on the margins.” But that’s wrong. First of all, anyone who thinks this episode has endeared the LGBTs to the Catholic Church is off his rocker. Even Fr. Martin later admitted that “some actions I’ve seen struck me as, while perhaps to the congregation joyful and celebratory, disrespectful of the sacred space that is St. Patrick’s Cathedral.” Secondly, the first Christians subjected themselves to every manner of humiliation, torture, and death for the sake of God. But they would never consider violating the sanctity of God’s temple.
Really, it’s the combination of these two heroic virtues—this total indifference to their own wellbeing, combined with their unshakeable love for the holy things of God—that awed so many pagans and won so many hearts for Christ.
Unfortunately, so many Christians have forgotten both love of God and love of man. They would rather allow their brothers and sisters to commit spiritual suicide, blaspheming God in His own church, than risk giving offense or making anyone feel “excluded.”
For many others—mostly older folks, I imagine; Fr. Dougherty, maybe—the events of February 16 were literally unbelievable. They can’t fathom why trans activists would even want to hold such a ceremony in a Roman cathedral. Why not go to one of the many Episcopal or Unitarian churches that fly rainbow flags over the door? They might hear about radical Muslims blowing up churches in the Middle East; they can’t imagine radical Leftists wanting to desecrate churches here in the United States. They don’t realize that (to borrow a phrase) the cruelty is the point.
They will soon enough.
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Certainly it would be good for Roman Parishes to recover some of their own traditions that protect the eucharist from sacrilege; such as churchwardens (sometimes called vergers), or rood screens, (and, of course, not treating a cathedral like a rental space.) Eamon Duffy's "The Stripping of the Altars" provides a good account of what that looked like in England on the eve of the English Reformation.
Another problem is that the parish no longer exists in the world of the automobile. Instead of a known community with firm edges, it is porous, not tied geographically to anything. This seems to affect all denominations of Christian.
This kind of attitude of guardianship emerged in the church because of persecutions. No doubt as persecution increases, these traditions will become useful again, perhaps in a different form. (One thinks of the Trad-Dads who conceal carry to their churches every Sunday.)
Satan attacks what is holy from his primordial fear and loathing. Just like the Pussy Riot incident in the Moscow Cathedral, or the murder of St. Jacques Hamel, these desecrations are a sign that even if church officials are venal and unfaithful, "the devils also believe, and tremble."
Easy answer: you aren't a practicing (e.g. going to Mass every Sunday, confessing sins at least once a year, etc.) member of a parish, you don't get a funeral there. My great uncle died a few years ago and his youngest adopted grandson (he married my paternal great aunt, his best friend's wife, after his wife and her husband died young around the same time, leaving my aunt with three kids) gave a totally ridiculous eulogy in which he referenced in not so veiled terms losing his v-card at his grandpa's hunting cabin. I don't think my great uncle had been to Mass in years. Maybe his funeral was okay, maybe not. But there should be NO BODY speaking at a funeral Mass because it's still a Mass. Eulogies are for the visitation/viewing that should occur in the days leading up to the Mass. Nobody besides the priest ought to speak at a funeral Mass.
Mr. Davis penned an article about being nice the other day: this is where lack of precision around the word "nice" has gotten us. It's not "nice" to refuse a funeral to a family of a recently deceased person or the Blessed Sacrament to those seeking it. After all, maybe the funeral Mass attendees will have their faith re-awakened (I have yet to hear a single story of somebody finding their faith anew after a funeral, in fact, just the opposite: I've had several family members let me know how happy they were to go up and receive "the bread and wine" with everybody else and it's "not a big deal".) or the person receiving communion in a state of mortal sin obtaining the graces to stop sinning (how many people even know what sins are mortal?).
I realize the cries to avoid cynicism and not judging motives, etc. etc. but I join Mr. Davis in his suspicions regarding the claimed lack of knowledge of the views held by the descendent and his friends and their probable plans. Jim Martin feigning offense is about as believable as Bill Clinton's mid-90s congressional testimony on "that woman, Ms. Lewinski" and he constantly remind one of Clinton's calling in to question the understanding of the word "is".