New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral, self-labeled “America’s Parish Church,” recently held a funeral service for self-identified transgender activist, atheist, and former sex worker Cecilia Gentili.
READ MORE from Elyse Apel: Hollywood’s Dystopian Dream: Kristen Stewart Plans to ‘Acquire’ Children
“This wh*re. This great wh*re. St. Cecilia [Gentili], mother of all wh*res,” exclaimed attender Oscar Diaz during the service, while clergy sat by. He was met with a standing ovation from the crowd.
Diaz told Time magazine that Gentili was “part of their chosen family.”
“We lost our saint,” said Ceyenne Doroshow, a transgender-identified individual and sex worker activist. “You might have heard the story that Jesus ministered to all. Cecilia ministered to all.” Doroshow then led the crowd in chanting Gentili’s name multiple times.
St. Patrick’s Cathedral, which is located in New York City, was filled with over 1,000 people, with many attendees wearing thongs, fishnet tights, and other similarly inappropriate garments. “It felt appropriate to send her off in this way, to give her her ‘sainthood,’” Diaz said.
The Rev. Fr. Edward Dougherty, a retired priest currently serving at St. Patrick’s, led the service. After telling the funeral attendees that “Cecilia died with Christ,” he joked, “Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t really have a crowd that is this well turned out.”
Gentili was the first transgender-identified individual to be allowed a funeral at St. Patrick’s Cathedral, funeral organizers claimed. The New York Times described the event as one “with no likely precedent in Catholic history.”
The service was originally intended to be celebrated as a funeral Mass, but the decision was made early to switch to the former. “What we do is we move to a funeral service, no mass,” someone was heard telling Fr. Dougherty.
Despite the change, the funeral service was still punctuated with hymns and prayers from the presiding clergy, whose perceived lack of proper preparation, management, and respect for Church teaching has ignited criticism from Catholics online.
Organizations such as TFP Student Action, a young Catholic group, have called for “reparation … for this sacrilege.” Fr. Nicholas Gregoris, founding member of the Priestly Society of Blessed John Henry Cardinal Newman, echoed this sentiment, posting on X that “This blasphemous & sacrilegious fiasco was a deplorable desecration of America’s most famous Catholic Church.”
Following the funeral service, the rector of St. Patrick’s Cathedral, Fr. Enrique Salvo, released a statement, saying: “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…. At the Cardinal’s directive, we have offered an appropriate Mass of Reparation.”
Gentili’s family objected to the cathedral’s explanation and released a statement of their own.
Calling Gentili’s funeral a “historic defiance of the Church’s hypocrisy and anti-trans hatred,” the family said, “We bestow sainthood upon Cecilia, for her life’s work, for how she ministered, mothered, and loved all people regardless of HIV, immigration, or employment status.”
On Ash Wednesday, Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (AOC) spoke on the floor of Congress, praising fellow New Yorker Gentili for living “her truth as a transwoman.”
“I rise today to reflect on the life and legacy of beloved Queens community leader, Cecilia Gentili,” AOC said, with ashes in the shape of a cross — a Catholic symbol of death and repentance — smeared on her forehead. “She devoted much of her life to uplifting our trans and undocumented community in Queens.”
CatholicVote said on X that AOC’s comments “mock the Christian faith in the most vile way imaginable,” but it wasn’t just hers — he funeral itself made a mockery of Christianity, from the garments and songs to the paintings of Gentili positioned at the front of the cathedral that copied the ancient art of iconography and read “holy wh*re.” It remains to be seen if the cathedral will take any steps to prevent a similar situation from occurring in the future.
