Fifth Avenue can seem — particularly to New Yorkers — the center of the universe. There are commuters and tourists, the highest-end stores, and yet, at the same time, St. Patrick’s Cathedral. Even there, silence is possible. Unless it is the early morning, there are always people walking about 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 even with all the shopping bags coming in and out. It honestly sometimes — especially when counterterrorism police are patrolling (which is unfortunately routine) — seems a bit of a miracle.
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 send-off at St. Patrick’s. Reports are that there were 1,000 people at the congregation, many of them dressed not as people might tend to for Mass — visible thongs and such. Part of the controversy over the funeral involves, for some, that it ever happened and, for others, that the full celebration of a Mass was nixed in real time as cathedral staff assessed what seemed to be going on. (It became clear later that the intention was to make the funeral an activist celebration so as to force the Church into appearing to be in support of gender-transitioning and a whole host of other matters it is not in support of and cannot be.) And that was even before there was real blasphemy.
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