(LifeSiteNews) — Cardinal Timothy Dolan of the Archdiocese of New York told a Catholic laywoman that Father Edward Dougherty, who officiated at the scandalous February 15 funeral service of a transgender activist and atheist in St. Patrick’s Cathedral, “is a hero.”
LifeSite spoke with Wendy Stone Long, who had approached Cardinal Dolan on Saturday, February 17 after his vigil Mass at Blessed Sacrament Parish in New Rochelle, New York. Long told LifeSiteNews that she first asked the cardinal when a Mass of Reparation would take place at the cathedral in order to make reparation for the recent sacrilegious funeral. Dolan leaned over to Long and whispered into her ear: “You know, I think it’s already happened – they did it on the QT (quiet) so it wouldn’t be disrupted by those protesters.”
When Long insisted that many Catholics would have liked to attend that Mass of Reparation in light of the great scandal of the funeral service, Dolan told her that Dougherty “is a hero” because “he stopped the (funeral) Mass.” And when Long objected that she herself had watched the entire service and that it was not stopped, Dolan said, “Then it went on without him,” and the cardinal turned around and walked away. Dolan did not use his homily at the Saturday evening vigil Mass in New Rochelle to comment on the scandal that had taken place in his own cathedral some days earlier and since then has not made any public comment on the matter.
Dougherty officiated the funeral service on February 15. As can be heard on the video of the event, he was told before the service that the originally planned funeral Mass had to be turned into a funeral service. “Funeral service, no Mass,” a clergyman told Dougherty, to which he replied, “OK, OK.” He obviously did not make that decision. He continuously spoke of the trans activist Cecilia Gentili (born a man) as “she” and indicated that Gentili was on the way to heaven. At the beginning of the service, he praised the attendees – hundreds of whom were transgender persons – by stating, “Except on Easter Sunday, we don’t really have a crowd that is so well turned out.” The congregation burst out in prolonged uproarious hoots and yells in response to the priest, who is then laughing.
He also tolerated the innumerable blasphemies and mockeries of the Catholic faith throughout the service, during which the Mother of God was mocked (replacing the words “Ave Maria” with the chant “Ave Cecilia,” as if Gentili was a saint and comparable to Our Lady). With the priest sitting nearby, one homosexual couple exchanged a kiss on the altar. When the “husband” of Gentili called the deceased an “angel,” Dougherty clapped his hands in approval. Another speaker called Gentili “our saint” who worked so that “sex workers are free.”
At certain points during the service, Dougherty could be heard laughing at the pranks of the audience. On the high altar of St. Patrick’s, transgenders were hugging and kissing during the remembrance speeches. One friend proclaimed Gentili as “this whore, this great whore” and “Saint Cecilia” to a huge outburst of applause. The crowd and organizers of the funeral event turned it into a political rally complete with cheers, catcalls, and intentions for “gender-affirming health care.” This blasphemous chant filled the entire cathedral as Gentili’s coffin was carried down the aisle, accompanied by Dougherty, who had stated at the end: “Let us take leave of our sister Cecilia.” He added, “One day we shall joyfully greet her again.” Source
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