Saint Patrick's New York: Defining Desecration

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In an era when individuals constantly seek to reinvent themselves in ways that defy common sense and decency, which is to say in ways that degrade psychological health and physical well being, few approaches seem available that will successfully persuade activists and enablers that the course they are pursuing and/or promoting doesn't merely lead to an individual destruction but to one that is contributing to the quickening disintegration of culture and civilisation.

The Idea of Man

Iconoclasm, the destruction of images, is a symptom of a larger infection that inevitably leads to the destruction of culture and civilization. The ultimate iconoclasm is the attempted destruction of the image of God in man. No amount of money, no physical barricades, nor any woke political inventions, can fix a society that enables and celebrates the abandonment of reason and the adoption of the absurd to a degree that every institution is saturated with caricatures of man that are practically worshipped as the be-all and end-all of education, of politics and of entertainment.

Pressures are building on people in ways that are moving societies deeper into despair. The virus is an insidious one. It has been let loose in schools and colleges, in governments and social organizations, and it is still spreading.

The infection goes something like this:

1. question identity
2. attack identity
3. redefine identity (impose deception)
4. destroy identity
5. replace identity

Or simply

1. question
2. attack
3. redefine (to deceive)
4. destroy
5. replace

Elaboration and consequences:

1. Question identity. Are we really made in the image and likeness of God? Am I really who others say I am? 'Who am I?' is reduced to 'what am I?'
2. Attack identity. Actions taken may push one to further question his lovability of himself and others. Accessing "easy" definitions, i.e., one-sided ploys that attempt to condition in another an escapist narrative, fuels doubt and determination. Further discovery is stunted by complacency, the satisfaction that one has arrived at a new frontier populated by like individuals who, unbeknownst to the seeker, are also trapped in a cycle of doubt and approaching despair. Drugs, sex and other deceptions are employed in an attempt to alleviate rational confrontation of the problems.
3. Redefine identity to effect a fluid state wherein deception becomes practiced and transformation possible. This is the axis in a process that can lead to despair or redemption (if the subject is brought into proximity with real, uncomplicated behaviours).
4. Destroy identity in an attempt to alleviate the need to confront pain. "That person (I was previously) no longer exists, ergo I'm free." 'Who I am' is reduced to 'what I am'.
5. Replace identity. A substitute - a chimera - is inserted into one's inner dialogue and external conversations. The recycling of supportive micro-identities (e.g., pronouns and terms of address or protocols) contributes to the erosion of objectivity and possibly the destruction of the host.

If one's true identity is disposable, so then, too, is the person himself disposable. It is far too easy to fall prey to destructive influences when one has little or no identity, no personal story that is understood as a given and a gift that enables resiliency and creativity.

Like the recipe identified above, the cure can be introduced in a similar manner. To help those who are lost, the task is not to rob them of agency by merely condemning their choices. Rather, the lost require what we all need: authenticity; reality; true relationships. The remedy looks something like this:

1. model hope, model Christ
2. listen and engage questions
3. provide perspective, encourage authentic dignity, plant seeds
4. foster openness, invite change
5. nurture confidence
6. offer Jesus Who offers "forgiveness and grace and liberation from the self-destruction to which they were in bondage"
7. maintain relationships, sustain friendship

All truth, goodness and beauty is found in Jesus Christ and His Church. There should be no surprises when the community of resurrection and hope is under constant attack. The Church is a threat to demons, the same demons who seek to possess the innocent and rob them of their dignity. Unfortunately, said demons know how to use their trophies to bludgeon others into a fear of retribution and attacks on their character and identity.

Those who have been violated require our example of humility, hope and love. The person whose recent New York funeral was exploited by activists was deeply wounded as a child. This we know from a variety of online biographies. As that same person sought understanding, he instead forged a deception aided by confused family members. The attempt to move beyond pain inflicted upon him likely fueled his passion to reinvent himself and to help others. Gentili's actions were likely an attempt to address the pain and suffering of being "sexually abused by a neighbor throughout (his) childhood, beginning when (he) was six years old" (NYT). Unfortunately, that struggle became twisted into a tragedy that consumed the individual and - if the behaviours of those in attendance at the funeral were any indication - has led others into malice, rage, confusion, deceit, defiance and despair.

Absent the grace of God, the people that Gentili sought to help were participating in and perhaps consigned to a prison of spiraling confusion and anguished self loathing, as is typical of the person hiding behind an assumed persona.

A mother's love distorted.

The funeral for Gentili was a deliberate deception on the part of his supporters, a last ditch desperate effort in an attempt to gain legitimacy for a hurting person's activism. The dynamics in play can be complicated. Public rituals often reach at:

1. a grand act of absolution to, in this instant, possibly assuage a mother's guilt for enabling a child's confusion and - perhaps to her unnecessary way of thinking - for her inability to protect her child from abuse by a pedophile. Whether or not a child blames a parent for a perceived dereliction of duty, a parent with any kind of heart will load up on guilt to the point of enabling a child's wayward behaviour in the wake of abuse to sate that parent's need for forgiveness. That guilt can cause a parent to offer approval while ignoring a child's real need for confronting pain and for healing.
2. a public canonization to lend both the deceased and his movement credibility.

Gentili's life is a testimony to the consequences of sin perpetrated against a child and how that sin, in the absence of real compassion provided by others and a heart docile to the transforming grace of God, can expand to consume others.

Carl Trueman offers a thoughtful and challenging diagnosis of the struggle.

Carl R. Trueman at First Things 2 . 22 . 24
ed. for length by Gilbert

(T)he controversy surrounding the recent funeral for Cecilia Gentili at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York has been well-documented in the press. Gentili was a transgender prostitute, an atheist, and a misogynist who denied that women’s bodies were of any real relevance.

Our age is not marked so much by disenchantment as by desecration. The culture’s officer class is committed not merely to marginalizing that which previous generations considered sacred. It is committed to its destruction. Disenchantment has passive connotations, a dull, impersonal, somewhat tedious but inevitable process. But desecration speaks to the exultation that active destruction of the holy involves. When Gentili is celebrated as a “great whore” in Spanish by trans rights advocate Liaam Winslet in a eulogy greeted with wild applause, then “desecration” seems the only word that captures both the blasphemy and the exhilaration of the moment.

What is clear is that none of these individuals speaks the language of mourning or loss. These are not words of disenchantment. They are the exultant words of desecration. To quote the commentary at CNN, “Gentili may not have been a believer, but she likely would have delighted in the spectacle at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”

Yet there is an irony here. Gentili is dead. There are limits to human self-creation. You can pretend your body has no authority. You can kid yourself and other people that you are a woman when you are a man. But you cannot defy your bodily limits indefinitely. Sooner or later, your body has the last word and you will, to use the American idiom, sleep the big sleep.

And that is where the irony becomes tragedy. As a number of individuals associated with the funeral commented to the press, Jesus did not turn people away and even welcomed prostitutes. That is true. But the key thing to remember is that he did not offer them affirmation. He offered them the possibility of forgiveness and grace and liberation from the self-destruction to which they were in bondage. Affirmation of such self-destruction and of rebellion against God is neither loving nor kind. And it too is a form of desecration—the desecration of man, man denied the opportunity to live freely as God intended.

https://www.firstthings.com/web-exclusives/2024/02/desecration-at-st-patricks-cathedral

Footnote

Mindful of the need to protect the flock of Christ, and the need to avoid being drawn into future attempts to desecrate holy ground, pastors would do well to review and tighten up their adherence to Canon Law.

Can. 1184

§1. Unless they gave some signs of repentance before death, the following must be deprived of ecclesiastical funerals:

1. notorious apostates, heretics, and schismatics;
2. those who chose the cremation of their bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith;
3. other manifest sinners who cannot be granted ecclesiastical funerals without public scandal of the faithful.

§2. If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted, and his judgment must be followed.

Can. 1185

Any funeral Mass must also be denied a person who is excluded from ecclesiastical funerals.