“I applaud our priests who made a quick decision: ‘With behavior like this, we cannot celebrate a Mass.’ We’ll do the Liturgy of the Word, which is the readings, the sermon and the prayers of petition and the Lord’s Prayer, and then we’ll stop it. The Mass will not continue,’” Dolan said.
On Saturday, February 17, Father Enrique Salvo, rector of New York Cathedral, indicated in a published statement on the Archdiocese of New York website that Church authorities shared the “outrage at the scandalous behavior at a funeral here at St. Patrick’s Cathedral.”
In the cathedral, he indicated, it was only known “that the family and friends were requesting a funeral Mass” for a Catholic person, and they did not know “that our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive manner.”