A funeral service at St. Patrick's Cathedral for a transgender woman was a "spiritual insurrection," "act of deception" and potential hate crime, Brian Burch, president of The Catholic Vote, told Newsmax on Thursday.
In an interview on "National Report," Burch railed at the service in the famed New York City cathedral for Cecilia Gentili, a prominent transgender activist and advocate for sex workers and HIV patients — an event that drew criticism for the nature of the eulogies and behavior of some attendees.
Gentili died Feb. 6 at the age of 52.
"I've called this a spiritual insurrection and I think that is an apt description," Burch said. "Because what occurred there wasn't just disrespectful. It was sacrilegious. It was blasphemous, and it was a direct assault on the beliefs and respect that Catholics are owed."
Burch added that he viewed the service as "an act of deception."
"The Cardinal [Timothy Dolan], archbishop of New York, has acknowledged, and the pastor of St. Patrick's [the Rev. Enrique Salvo] has also affirmed that they were deceived," Burch said.
"They did not know what was going to occur in there. And in our opinion, this rises to the level of a potential hate crime under New York state law."
Burch also argued it's a crime to gain access to a venue under false pretenses "or to use deception in order to carry out, in this case, a political stunt that was a direct assault on the beliefs of Catholics."
He called on the state attorney general "to intervene, to investigate this and to determine whether in fact they engaged in what we believe New York state law calls a criminal trespass."
According to Burch, the funeral service was "intolerable" and "can never happen again" — alleging "this radical gay rights movement is not content to be left alone. They're now seeking to use our institutions, our rituals, our places of worship, to affirm and to advance their agenda that is clearly hostile to the belief of Catholics."
The founder of Gays and Lesbians Living in a Transgender Society, Ceyenne Doroshow, denied there was any deception.
"I didn't dupe the church," she told NY1. "I didn't tell them [about] her gender orientation. I didn't have to because you don't need to know ... to respect her wishes."
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Fran Beyer ✉
Fran Beyer is a writer with Newsmax and covers national politics.