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Post by iagosan on Feb 17, 2024 11:31:07 GMT
Blasphemous Funeral "Service" for atheist transgender activisthttps://thepostmillennial.com/funeral-for-atheist-trans-sex-worker-activist-in-nyc-catholic-church-features-prayers-for-sex-changes-celebration-of-whoredom at St. Patrick's Cathedral New York City
"Mourning a Transgender Activist at a Cathedral That Once Drew Protests
St. Patrick’s Cathedral was the site of protests over the church’s position on homosexuality and AIDS. On Thursday, it hosted a jubilant funeral for Cecilia Gentili, a former sex worker and actress.
Feb. 15, 2024 N.Y.T.
The pews of St. Patrick’s Cathedral were packed on Thursday for an event with no likely precedent in Catholic history: the funeral of Cecilia Gentili, a transgender activist and actress, former sex worker and self-professed atheist whose memorial functioned as both a celebration of her life and an exuberant piece of political theater.
Over 1,000 mourners, several hundred of whom were transgender, arrived in daring outfits — glittery miniskirts and halter tops, fishnet stockings, sumptuous fur stoles and at least one boa sewed from $100 bills. 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.
That St. Patrick’s Cathedral would host the funeral for a high-profile transgender activist, who was well known for her advocacy on behalf of sex workers, transgender people and people living with H.I.V., might come as a surprise to some.
Not much more than a generation ago, at the heights of the AIDS crisis, the cathedral was a flashpoint in conflicts between gay activists and the Catholic Church, whose opposition to homosexuality and condom use enraged the community. The towering neo-Gothic building became the site of headline-grabbing protests in which activists chained themselves to the pews and lay down in the aisles.
The church has softened its tone on those issues in recent years, and New York’s current cardinal, Timothy Dolan, has said the church should be more welcoming of gay people. Joseph Zwilling, a spokesman for the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of New York, did not respond to questions about whether the church had been aware of Ms. Gentili’s background when it agreed to host her funeral.
On Wednesday, he said that “if a request comes in for a funeral from a Catholic, the cathedral does its best to accommodate.”
New York City is home to roughly a dozen gay-friendly Catholic parishes, but St. Patrick’s Cathedral, the seat of the archdiocese, is not one of them.
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.
Ms. Gentili’s death came at a politically fraught time for transgender people, as states across the country restrict access their access to health care and public accommodation. Religious groups have played an active role in those efforts, but at the same time Pope Francis has taken steps toward inclusivity, saying last year that transgender people can be baptized, serve as godparents and be witnesses at church weddings.
Mr. Zwilling said he did not know whether or not Ms. Gentili had attended Mass at the cathedral, or if any other transgender people had had their funerals there. But he said that “a funeral is one of the corporal works of mercy,” a part of Catholic teaching that the church has described as “a model for how we should treat all others, as if they were Christ in disguise.”
The priest’s remarks did not address the specifics of Ms. Gentili’s life. As the service began, the priest, the Rev. Edward Dougherty, said it was the largest crowd he had seen since Easter Sunday. That comment drew the first of several rounds of cheers, chants and standing ovations.
At one point, a friend of Ms. Gentili’s took the lectern to pray for access to gender-affirming health care. At another, a mourner upstaged a priest singing “Ave Maria,” changing the lyrics to “Ave Cecilia.” She then danced through the aisles, red scarves twirling around her.
Later in the day, several people who attended a Mass at the cathedral said they were pleased it had hosted Ms. Gentili’s funeral.
Carlos Nunez, 43, who lives in Manhattan and works in customer service, said he thought the funeral was proper.
“Why not?” he said, leaving the cathedral. “Everybody has the right to come to church. Everybody is a child of God.”
Michael Minogue, 67, said he had reconsidered some of his own views after a friend died of AIDS in the 1980s. He said it struck him as benevolent — on the part of the church and mourners alike — that Ms. Gentili had her funeral in the cathedral.
“It signifies a bit more tolerance on both sides,” he said.
Ms. Gentili was an atheist, but her one-woman Off Broadway show, “Red Ink,” explored her encounters with the divine in unexpected places. In an interview last fall, she said she had “never had opportunities to experience a faith that was fully embracing of me” as a transgender person but had recently begun attending services again at various churches.
The Rev. James Martin, a well-known Jesuit writer who advocates a more inclusive approach from the church, said it was “wonderful” that St. Patrick’s had agreed to hold Ms. Gentili’s funeral.
“To celebrate the funeral Mass of a transgender woman at St. Patrick’s is a powerful reminder, during Lent, that L.G.B.T.Q. people are as much a part of the church as anyone else,” he said. “I wonder if it would have happened a generation ago.”
At the time, the city’s AIDS crisis had plunged the church’s fraught relations with the city’s gay and transgender community to a new a low.
In the late ’80s, Cardinal John O’Connor, the leader of the archdiocese, barred a gay Catholic group from meeting at their longtime church and said AIDS was spread through “sexual aberrations or drug abuse.” He also said the advice to use condoms to stop the spread of the disease was based on “lies.”
In 1989, more than 4,000 people protested outside St. Patrick’s, and protesters chanted and chained themselves to the pews inside. The police arrested 111 people during the protest, which became a touchstone in the city’s gay history.
The organizers of Ms. Gentili’s funeral said they hoped it would go down as a similarly important moment for the community. And as pallbearers walked Ms. Gentili’s coffin back up the aisle at the end of the service, chants once again echoed through the nave of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.
“Cecilia! Cecilia! Cecilia!”"
web.archive.org/web/20240216111109/https://www.nytimes.com/2024/02/15/nyregion/cecilia-gentili-funeral-st-patricks-cathedral.html
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archive.ph/wip/X8onX
Video footage of a short part of a eulogy given at this service.Viewers may need to click on the image to start the audio and visual parts of the recording, which should be viewed until the conclusion which is in English
Viewer Discretion is seriously advised before watching this short clip as it commits blasphemous mockery against Saint Cecilia.
More on this story can be read here:
‘Mother of All Whores’: Transgender Activists Hold Irreverent Funeral for Atheist Prostitute at St. Patrick’s Cathedral
and photographs can be viewed here:
Scenes From Trans Activist Cecilia Gentili’s Funeral as Mourners Fill St. Patrick’s Cathredal
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Post by homeschooldad on Feb 17, 2024 14:59:36 GMT
Keep this stuff coming. People need to know.
And you're not going to hear about it from reading Our Sunday Visitor or, a fortiori, Where Peter Is. (Though if WPI did tackle it, they'd no doubt gloss over it under the mantle of "Best Pope Ever" Francis and his discernment and accompaniment.)
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Post by iagosan on Feb 17, 2024 17:09:31 GMT
I have managed to locate a recording of this service on Youtube and it all seems to be an even more curious incident. After the coffin is brought into the church and the service starts, various conversations involving the celebrant and others in the sanctuary become discernible, including live discussion of running changes in the procedure as the service progresses.These include an impromptu hurriedly taken decision to move to a "committal" of the deceased. Despite James Martin SJ mentioning a "Mass" when discussing the incident, (as reported in the New York Times) report above, I have not seen a consecration take place in the footage I have seen, therefore I intend to amend this post to describe what too place as a "service" pending further evidence that some form of "Mass" was attempted.
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Post by iagosan on Feb 17, 2024 18:51:24 GMT
Well, it appears that the world wide outrage that was created by the rapidly spreading news of this matter has prompted Cardinal Dolan today to order a Mass of Reparation for the sacrilege. Further details can be found in the report below that has been posted a short time ago.
(Incidentally, regarding the paragraph in the report below that refers to the Spanish speaking woman called “Gentili”, I consider the translation of the word”puta” is wrong in this report. The equivalent word in English, is that which was provided in the video footage taken in the church and is posted in the original topic post above. i.e. “ whore”. I believe that this meaning would probably be recognised by almost all Spanish speakers worldwide.
Rector: Mass of reparation offered at St. Patrick’s Cathedral after ‘scandalous funeral” (sic)
(OSV News) — Two days after St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City was filled with mourners for an irreverent “homecoming” funeral for a prominent activist who identified as transgender, the cathedral’s rector acknowledged that many people “have let us know they share our outrage over the scandalous behavior” that took place at the service.
Father Enrique Salvo said in a Feb. 17 statement that at New York Cardinal Timothy M. Dolan’s “directive, we have offered an appropriate Mass of Reparation.”
“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,” Father Salvo said.
Hundreds were on hand Feb. 15 to commemorate actress and author Cecilia Gentili, an Argentine native who had battled sexual abuse from age six and trafficking, as well as homelessness, heroin addiction and incarceration. The 52-year-old died Feb. 6 of unnamed causes at the Brooklyn, New York, home Gentili shared with partner Peter Scotto.
Gentili was the founder and principal consultant of Trans Equity Consulting and an advocate for the decriminalization of sex work.
Ceyenne Doroshow — founder and director of GLITS Inc. (Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society), organized the funeral. She told The New York Times that she approached St. Patrick’s since “it is an icon, just like (Gentili).”
Doroshow also told the newspaper that she had not advised pastoral staff that Gentili identified as transgender, saying, “I kind of kept it under wraps.”
The New York Times noted 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.” Many mourners, the newspaper said, sported attire that included “glittery miniskirts and halter tops, fishnet stockings, sumptuous fur stoles and at least one boa sewed from what appeared to be $100 bills.”
“That such a scandal occurred at ‘America’s Parish Church’ makes it worse,” Father Salvo said in his statement. “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.”
Father Salvo’s statement was released by Joseph Zwilling, director of communications for the Archdiocese of New York, who told OSV News Feb. 16 that “the cathedral is a functioning church that celebrates Mass, baptisms, weddings and funerals. And if somebody calls and … they’re trying to arrange a funeral for a Catholic, one assumes they are a Catholic. If the church can accommodate them, they try to do so.”
“We don’t conduct background checks on people who come to us looking to have a funeral,” said Zwilling, who said he had not been present at the cathedral during the ceremony.
According to a November 2023 interview, Gentili, a self-professed atheist, had been “reexamining (a) relationship with religion for a long time,” and had come “from a family of so many different faiths” that prevented Gentili from feeling “attached to any of them.”
In livestream video from the event uploaded to Trans Equity’s YouTube channel, Maryknoll Father Edward Dougherty, who presided at what Doroshow said in introductory remarks was a “homegoing service,” blessed Gentili’s body with holy water according to the opening rites of the Mass of Christian burial.
Following the entrance hymn of “Amazing Grace,” Father Dougherty surveyed the full church, welcomed the crowd and said, “Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t really have a crowd that is this well turned out, you know?”
He laughed and gave a thumbs-up sign as attendees burst into loud cheers and applause, waving and delivering a standing ovation.
As the camera displays the crowd from the back of the church, a male voice can then be heard on the livestream, apparently speaking to Father Dougherty and saying, “What we’ll do is move to a funeral service — no Mass — so after that, we’ll do the final commendation and we’re done.”
A second male voice — presumably that of Father Dougherty — can be heard responding, “OK, yeah.”
A similar exchange can be heard following the Liturgy of the Word, during which the second reader gave a slight flounce while ascending to the lectern, saying, “We still going to show up as us.”
Father Dougherty’s homily, which articulated the Catholic perspective of death in light of Jesus Christ’s resurrection and the sacrament of baptism, drew applause.
A woman who read the prayers of the faithful in both English and Spanish from her cellphone implored that Gentili might be “nourished at the table of the Savior.”
“May Cecilia’s community be lived and received and seen by each other, and have access to life-affirming health care and God’s protection with secure housing,” she concluded emphatically, adding to another round of applause, “We pray to our Lord Jesus Christ, who was full of love.”
Several personal tributes then followed, including a tearful one from Scotto, who turned to Father Dougherty and said, “For those of you who didn’t know her, she really was an angel.”
Doroshow lauded Gentili’s work to ensure “that sex workers are free,” declaring, “Y’all may have heard that Jesus ministers to all” and leading those present in a loud call-and-response chant of “Cecilia, Cecilia, Cecilia.”
Another individual, speaking in Spanish, described Gentili as “esta puta, esta gran puta, la Santa Cecilia, la madre de todas las putas … danos la fuerza y el coraje” (“this bitch, this grand bitch, St. Cecilia, the mother of all bitches … give us strength and courage”).
Following the “Ave Maria,” sung by a cathedral cantor, an individual emerged from the pews to spontaneously dance before the casket and then down the aisle as attendees applauded.
Male voices on the livestream are then heard saying, “We’ll do the Our Father and then the final commendation,” after which the cantor intoned the Latin commendation chant “In Paradisum.”
Zwilling, who told OSV News Feb. 16 that the organizers had “requested a Mass,” said he was “sure” that “for every funeral that has ever been held in St. Patrick’s Cathedral — yesterday’s funeral or (that of) any archbishop of New York or anyone else who’s ever been buried from there — they’ve all been funerals for sinners.”
www.osvnews.com/2024/02/17/rector-mass-of-reparation-offered-at-st-patricks-cathedral-after-scandalous-funeral/
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