To bury the dead is one of the most beautiful human traditions. And so it has been at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City for well more than a century, as Catholics in the Big Apple have used the space for solemn ceremonies remembering loved ones since it opened in the late 1800s.
But on Feb. 15, a group of LGBT activists lied and deceived their way into holding a funeral Mass at the landmark New York City church for Cecilia Gentili, an avowed atheist who was openly transgender and who had supported legalizing prostitution.
But instead of a somber occasion to pray for the soul of the deceased, as is the custom of Catholic funerals, the event turned into a blasphemous desecration of one of the most sacred spaces for the Catholic Church in the United States.
Activists took to the cathedral lectern and praised Gentili in vulgar terms while mocking sainthood. “This whore. This great whore. St. Cecilia, mother of all whores!” And the Ave Maria hymn was drowned out by a dancer who proclaimed, “Ave Cecilia.”
It was such a blasphemous event that the cathedral and the Archdiocese of New York announced that they were going to hold a Mass of reparation to atone for the obscenities and vulgarities that had taken place during the event.
But after that, the activists who organized the funeral admitted that they lied and deceived the cathedral staff when planning the funeral.
From the New York Times: “Ceyenne Doroshow, who organized the funeral, said friends of Ms. Gentili — who died on Feb. 6 at 52 — had wanted the service to be at St. Patrick’s because ‘it is an icon, just like her.’ But she added that she had not mentioned that Ms. Gentili was transgender when planning with the church. ‘I kind of kept it under wraps,’ she said.”
Effectively, the organizers of the funeral gained access to the cathedral under false pretenses and then used the event as a political statement and to blaspheme a space dedicated to prayer. And as the organization CatholicVote recently noted in a letter to New York Attorney General Letitia James, such a deception is a form of trespassing, and the decision to target a Catholic holy site is arguably a hate crime.
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“As you know, New York state law bars criminal trespass and hate crimes,” CatholicVote President Brian Burch wrote in the letter. “New York’s Hate Crimes Act prohibits persons from selecting a victim based on their belief or perception regarding religion or religious practice, among other things, when committing specified offenses. Under New York’s hate crimes law, selecting the victim of a criminal trespass based on a religion or religious practice is a hate crime. New York’s court’s have recognized that those who gain access to property by deception are liable for criminal trespass.”
For someone who has made political theater a staple of her time as New York’s attorney general, there is little reason to think that James will do anything about this egregious hate crime. But at the very least, this hateful incident is getting some much-needed attention. When faced with the darkness of deception, the best medicine is sunlight.