The judgy, judgy, judgemental judge.
CNN seems to have gotten a copy of the prepared homily written by (or at least for) Reverend LaCuesta, the remarks given at the funeral of a teenager who committed suicide. It’s not exactly as has been previously suggested, but to me it doesn’t read as being entirely sensitive to the family. I kinda get where he was going with this, that suicides *can* get that golden ticket into Heaven if God is in a good mood that day, but it still comes across a bit… I dunno. Speechifyin’ for funerals isn’t really my forte. All I know about funerals is that the dead guy is the *least* important person there. Whether you say good thing about him or bad… he’s not going to give a damn. He’s dead. It’s like praising or damning a cinderblock: it’s just not going to care. The people that matter are the mourners (or potentially celebrants, depending on how bad of a scumbag the dead guy was), so the ramblings need to be tailored to them. The preacherman needs to balance saying things to soothe their pain with things to keep them from doing stupid stuff; I imagine that’s usually straightforward, but with suicides that’s doubtless trickier. From a Catholic standpoint I have no idea if this homily as written fits the bill. Additionally, without video evidence I have no idea if this was the speech as actually given. And the best written speech in the world can be trashed by a bad delivery. So… shrug.
At a teen’s funeral, a priest condemned suicide and ‘basically called our son a sinner,’ mother says
One the one hand, calling a dead kid a sinner seems a tad tacky. On the other hand… have you *met* Christianity? That’s kinda the point. Humans are terrible, terrible creatures: flawed, imperfect beings slapped together by a perfect and infallible supreme being who loves us so much he has a lake of fire set aside just for us. Yeah, doesn’t make much sense to me either, but there it is… turn on a televangelist or radio preacher, and that’s what they’re forever yammering on about. Really, the only truly surprising thing a Catholic homily for a dead person could contain that would really surprise me would be if the priest started going on about how the dead guy has very likely found a home in the halls of Valhalla alongside Odin and the Einherjar. That would make me raise an eyebrow somewhat.
The homily is available in PDF form here.