Fifth Avenue heartache
Fifth Avenue in New York City is a bustling place, filled with tourists, commuters and residents. Even there, a little tranquility is possible, thanks to St. Patrick's Cathedral. Unless it's very early in the morning, there are always people walking around the church — some of them with selfie sticks, some of them lighting candles.
There is also a chapel dedicated to Mary deep within that is kept as a sacred space for prayer. It's a bit of an oasis in a loud, crowded world.
St. Patrick's was not silent for the funeral of transgender activist Cecilia Gentili. Born a man and baptized Catholic, friends wanted Gentili to have a sendoff at St. Patrick's. Reports are that there were 1,000 people in attendance, many of them dressed not as you'd expect for a somber religious occasion.
The cathedral livestreams
Masses on YouTube, allowing anyone to watch as Gentili was eulogized as “great whore, St. Cecilia, the mother of all whores.”
As you may have already read or seen, as the traditional “Ave Maria” to the mother of Jesus was sung by one of the regular cathedral cantors — common at Catholic funerals — someone tried to drown out the “Maria” with “Cecilia” and danced down the aisle. The Church has rightly spoken out against this behavior and kicked up quite a controversy in the process.
It is fitting that this happened at St. Patrick's. New York is, in many ways, a clash of values. A melting pot of different creeds and traditions, all trying to make a go of it.
As I write, the latest in the funeral drama is that friends of Gentili are insisting on an apology from the Archdiocese of
New York. The accusation is that the cathedral didn't do what was right, because it wasn't an actual Mass. But a Mass involves the most profound prayer that is possible in the Catholic Church. We believe that the bread and wine become the body and blood of Jesus. Not everyone believes that this happens, needless to say. And as has become clear, for some in attendance, the funeral of Gentili wasn't merely about commending her soul to God, but celebrating her activism in the most prominent Catholic Church in New York.
The cathedral was respecting the real change in a soul that happens in the sacrament of baptism, something Gentili had undergone. We pray for souls when they die. Some homilies and eulogies don't capture this, but we are all sinners — daily Mass-goers and transgender activists, all. We pray for the purification of the soul so that it may enter heaven. And so, while cathedral officials could have been more prepared for what was about to happen, they were respecting the power of baptism. Many of those who were welcomed into the cathedral weren't reciprocal in their respect. And thus it was right and just not to have the holy sacrifice of the Mass.
The whole incident points to the standstill or — I hate the word — the war we seem to be in the midst of, or on the verge of. Do we believe in anything like pluralism anymore? Our politics certainly suggests we don't.
There are no incentives for actual collaboration for the common good. Compromise is seen as a sellout, when it could be a little principled leadership, gradually getting to your goals, working within the reality of culture as it is.
At times, we can't even sit beside each other in a church without being ideological.
I'm a firm believer that God works with everything. And I think I might be grateful that this incident happened. I wouldn't know who Gentili was if it weren't for the scene at the cathedral. And Gentili lived a difficult life in a confusing world. Every day at the cathedral, people walk in and walk out who are hurting in various ways.
That had to be the case for many of the people there that day — most of whom, it may be safe to assume, aren't usually at Sunday Mass.
The scandal isn't that transgender people and allied advocates were in the church, but that a person was being praised rather than God (and in crude ways, ignoring or abusing the sacred space).
Rather than being angry about the incident at the cathedral — whatever your position on whether it should or should not have happened — it could be a catalyst for reflection. How can we live together during these divisive and chaotic times? How can we agree on the essential truth of the human person and the dignity of life while allowing for differences? We have to stop yelling at each other if we're going to find some answers.
Kathryn Jean Lopez is senior fellow at the National Review Institute, editor-at-large of National Review magazine and author of the new book “A Year With the Mystics: Visionary Wisdom for Daily Living.”
She is also chair of Cardinal Dolan's pro-life commission in New York, and is on the board of the University of Mary. She can be contacted at klopez@ nationalreview.com.