![]() ![]() First, it is time to revisit the default custom that Catholic funerals be funeral Masses. Two lessons for Catholic funerals suggest themselves. The priests on hand, in the first few minutes, made a quick decision to abandon the original plans for a funeral Mass and to hurry through readings, prayers, and eulogies. Patrick’s there was plenty of camp and plenty of revelry. The eruptions, ovations, hooting and hollering-even before things got underway-put one in the mind of Moses detecting the sounds of “revelry” before the golden calf in the Israelite camp. That what was intended for the Gentili funeral was something other than a Catholic funeral became clear when the thousand or so mourners and activists turned up. ![]() ![]() Richard liked that image very much, for he too loved St. Patrick’s on Good Friday is to stand between Atlas and the Cross, and to choose. Archbishop Fulton Sheen had fun with that, noting that even Atlas bent the knee at the name of Jesus. Patrick’s has been in a perpetual battle of the icons for the better part of a century, ever since, in 1937, the Rockefellers thoughtfully erected a statue of Atlas in their plaza across Fifth Avenue. Patrick’s means, hence their desire to have a transgender rally masquerading-to use the precisely right word-as a Catholic funeral at St. Those who arranged it did partially understand what St. The funeral sought to further divide, to rebel against that iconic meaning. Patrick’s manifests unity across divisions. His lines on the stained-glass windows are famous, but this passage seems appropriate now: The unity of a Gothic cathedral, we know, is not the static unity of a classical temple, but a unity born of the dynamic tension of diverse forces which impel the architecture upward, pointing it to heaven. Here too, we can see a symbol of the Church’s unity, which is the unity-as Saint Paul has told us-of a living body composed of many different members, each with its own role and purpose. Here too we see our need to acknowledge and reverence the gifts of each and every member of the body as “manifestations of the Spirit given for the good of all” (1 Cor. 12:7). Patrick’s is a true icon of the Church, as Pope Benedict XVI memorably preached on his visit there in 2008. John Paul the Great taught, namely that “the body is an icon of the person.” Transgenderism is a rejection of what St. Cecilia Gentili was a kind of reverse icon in that sense, rebelling against the corporality of being made in the image and likeness of God. The term “icon” is now used to mean merely “famous,” but the proper religious meaning is an image that makes present an intangible holiness. The organizers of the event considered Cecilia Gentili an “icon,” hence they wanted an “icon” for the funeral. Richard, for taxi drivers and transgender activists, the point is the same. ![]() “Reverend, I don’t know where you’re from, but in New York this is where Christ lives,” replied the cabbie.įor Fr. He was surprised when the cab driver took him to St. This Methodist minister jumped in a taxi at the airport and asked to be taken to Christ Church, which is on Park Avenue. Richard John Neuhaus often told a story about a visiting clergyman in New York. The event told us something important about all four elements involved: the cathedral, Catholic funerals, transgender activists, and the media. Patrick’s for transgender activist Cecilia Gentili. On February 15, a funeral was held at St. It was painful to see it the object of a sacrilegious ambush early in Lent. ![]()
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