‘FINAL JUDGMENT TO GOD’
Victims’ kin blast Bulger church rites
The private funeral Mass for James “Whitey” Bulger held yesterday in South Boston was the height of “hypocrisy,” said a brother who lost his sister to the mobster’s gang. “What are we supposed to do? Say 10 Hail Marys and all is forgiven? Why is this guy getting all his wishes? It’s sick,” said Steve Davis, whose sister, Debra, was murdered in 1981 in a Winter Hill Gang hit and left in a shallow grave in Quincy. “He’s a serial killer. I don’t think he deserves a funeral Mass,” Davis told the Herald. “It’s hypocrisy. How could the church allow this? It’s the world we live in now where it’s all swept away.” Bulger’s ceremony at St. Monica-St. Augustine Church was within feet of the Winter Hill Gang’s former headquarters in a liquor store on Old Colony Avenue, the Archdiocese of Boston confirmed. Among those who gathered to honor Bulger was younger brother William M. Bulger, former president of both the state Senate and the University of Massachusetts, and Margaret McCusker, 67, the twin sister of Catherine Greig, Bulger’s incarcerated girlfriend and traveling companion during his 16 years on the lam. “At the request of and out of pastoral care for the Bulger family, I offered a Mass today at St. Monica Church in Boston for James Bulger,” the Rev. James A. Flavin said in a statement. “Out of respect for the family and those who were hurt, it was a private service just for the immediate family. “The church is certainly aware of the deep pain that innocent victims of crime and violence live with every day,” Flavin said. “In my homily, I said, ‘From the beginning of creation it was God who brought order and peace in the midst of chaos. When our parents failed in the Garden of Eden, God sent his only son Jesus to once again bring order and peace to a chaotic world through his death on the cross. I am certain that God is present to everyone suffering chaos and pain.’ “As Catholic priests we are called to bury the dead and pray for God’s justice and mercy,” Flavin said. “We entrust our final judgment to God.” Bulger, 89, was beaten to death Oct. 30 inside Hazelton penitentiary in West Virginia hours after the federal Bureau of Prisons relocated him from Florida, where he was five years into serving two life sentences for his role in 11 murders in three states. As of yesterday, all inmates were still refused visits. Federal authorities investigating Bulger’s killing are looking at two former mobsters from Massachusetts, Fotios Geas, 51, and Paul J. DeCologero, 44, who are also inmates at Hazelton. Others who lost loved ones to Bulger’s reign of terror said they leave final judgment to a higher authority. “If there’s something after life,” said Tommy Donahue, who lost his dad to Bulger, “I’m sure he’s dealing with the bad part of it.”