Burying the Dead; Corporal Work of Mercy or ‘succour to murderous thugs’?

Should Frank Sinatra have been allowed a church funeral? It was one of the questions that followed the death in 1998 of one of the most popular and influential actors and singers of the twentieth century.
Sinatra was raised a Catholic, as might be expected from his Italian background, but it could be said that he didn’t wear his Catholicism on his sleeve. There was always about ‘Old Blue Eyes’, as he was fondly known, a slight whiff of sulphur. A much-married man, he never seemed overtly religious.
Yet his funeral Mass was, as the Americans would say, something else. 30,000 white flowers decorated the church. His son Frank Jr and his daughter Nancy paid fulsome tributes at the Mass and, inevitably, his song, Put your dreams away, was centre-stage.
Afterwards, questions were asked about how appropriate the tribute was and indeed whether Sinatra was ‘entitled’ to a Funeral Mass. It’s a question that pops up regularly now when a church ceremony is effectively high-jacked with the funeral of a celebrity of whatever hue and the Mass ends up as an add-on to a celebration of his or her life that seems to have little to do with faith in the resurrection.
A famous recent example was the funeral of David Byrne, a prominent member of a Dublin crime-gang, who was gunned down in cold blood in the Regency Hotel in Dublin. The subsequent Mafia-type funeral caused huge outrage, with the god-fathers of crime gathered in a Dublin church accompanied by their fashionably dressed wives, partners and girlfriends, and driven in a series of stretch limousines in a vulgar display of wealth, all the more outrageous as it was built on the drug-infested deaths of so many young people in Dublin and the resulting legacy of misery to so many families. The expensive blue casket, glistening in the unlikely February sun, seemed to confound the insult.
Brenda Power, writing in the Mail, was exercised by Ireland’s crime families flaunting their ill-gotten gains and seemed to blame the church for allowing such funerals the use of churches, under the heading ‘Church should ban the funerals of gangsters instead of giving succour to murderous thugs’. What Power was saying was that if the Catholic Church in Ireland had any regard for themselves or any respect for their institutions or ceremonies they should really abhor the celebration of a gangster like David Byrne.
It’s a difficult issue, of course, and Power’s point of view was shared by many. But it’s not simple. One of the most difficult truths of the Christian faith is that no one is beyond the reach of God’s mercy. No one. This is easy to understand in theory but a difficult concept to accept in practice.
The Catholic Church posits the existence of Hell but never says that there’s anyone there. Not even Hitler or Stalin or any other evil ogre history has thrown up. Because to do so would be to limit the range of God’s forgiveness.
The Christian religion is more than a kind of social moralism – a dividend that contributes significantly to the values society has decided it’s happy with. The impetus of religion cannot be limited to what society regards as socially useful because, in a word, Christianity doesn’t allow itself to fit society’s moral or political ends. Christian faith, the writer Terry Eagleton has pointed out, ‘is not about moral uplift, political unity or aesthetic charm’. It starts with a crucified body.
The crucified body represents God’s incomprehensible, incalculable, unending love for each one of us. No one, Christian theology celebrates, is ever beyond the reach of God’s forgiveness.
So whether it’s the funeral of an IRA bomber during the troubles in the North or a priest pedophile buried in the dead of night or gangsters who have brought incredible suffering to countless individuals and families, that one truth applies to everyone. None of them is beyond the extended reach of God’s love and moderating that reach is not an option for a Christian church.
Jesus Christ expressed that truth clearly in just two words in Luke 6:37, ‘Judge not’.
David Byrne, regardless of what anyone might say about him, regardless of the many obvious and, it would seem, unrepented failures of his life, was entitled to a funeral Mass, not just by virtue of his baptism, not just as a consolation to family members devastated by his horrific death, but simply because God loves everyone, regardless, and no one has the right to pretend that any human being, priest, bishop or pope, can decide who is and who is not worthy of God’s love.
The other practical difficulty is that once human beings start deciding who’s entitled to a funeral Mass and who isn’t, we find ourselves in difficult straits. A week or so after David Byrne’s obsequies, the funeral took place of George Redmond, described by one national paper as ‘one of the most corrupt public officials in Irish history’. Should Redmond have been refused a funeral Mass? Should Liam Lawlor? Should Charlie Haughey? There’s no end to the list . . .
It has become common practice now for commentators to tell the Catholic Church to stop interfering in areas that are clearly the responsibility of the State and yet the Church is continually being blamed for not solving problems that its the State’s business to solve.
If there aren’t enough places in schools, why don’t the Catholic Church give up their schools? If criminals are walking the streets, parading themselves with their ill-gotten and gangsters are thumbing their noses at society, why don’t the Catholic Church refuse them a religious burial?
But, to quote practically every commentator in Ireland in the last three years, why doesn’t the Catholic Church look after its own business and leave the State – for example, in the two instances referred to above, the Department of Education and An Garda Síochána – to manage its own affairs.
That should apply the other way round too. When the Catholic Church does its business – reminding us that there’s no limit to God’s love – that should be respected too.