Shining a light on truth vs. comforting the grieving? Funeral homily in cases of suicide

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What the priest said at the funeral ‘according to the article’ is wrong. However, the media is so quick to critize the Catholic faith and not give the whole story, I have to wonder what the whole truth is
 
mrsdizzyd said:
What also stood out to me was that the family wants nothing short of this priest being sacked. I think this misses the mark. He can be advised and mentored and educated to a better understanding of suicide.
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The family is upset, understandably so. But obviously the priest is not going to be removed after one homily gone bad. If the priest has recurring problems dealing with people that (like this situation) don’t amount to a crime or grounds for a lawsuit, he might be found an assignment out of the public eye. He also might be a fine priest in other ways, we just don’t know.
 
Probably this wasnt the right priest to conduct this particular funeral for this particular family. Still, Church officials have apologized, and I think that should be quite enough. For the “Hullibargers”, sadly, it isn’t. They want blood now:
The Hullibargers said an apology isn’t enough. “Really, the only way for that to happen is for this priest to be removed. We’re afraid that, like the Catholic Church does, they’ll send him off and he’ll do it to somebody else,” Jeff Hullibarger said.
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Perhaps someone should explain to these people that priesthood isn’t a job you can get fired from. Furthermore, Mr. Hullibarger’s insinuation that the Church is in the habit of relocating priests to accomodate whatever “nasty habits” they have, is in terribly bad taste.
 
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Mr. Hullibarger does have a point.

Didn’t the Church do exactly that for priests who committed way worst crimes than speaking thoughtlessly?
 
I would have liked to hear the whole homily.

On the other hand, even though it may have rubbed salt in wounds and words could have been chosen better, if talking about the subject in the homily led someone there to not go through with a future suicide attempt by making them think twice before going through with it, I think it is worth it.
 
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“At one point Jeff Hullibarger, the teen’s father, walked over to the priest and whispered, “Father, please stop,” to no avail.

“We wanted him to celebrate how Maison lived, not how he died,” Maison’s mother said.”

There are other articles that talk about a coach that was a bully to him and his siblings, probably other kids as well. The coach showed up at the funeral, was asked to leave, and proceeded to post some nasty things on social media. Then this priest wouldn’t even stop when asked by a grieving father.

This family has suffered enough. The poor boy is continuing being bullied even after death! I pray the Good Lord has him in his arms. He deserves to rest, and his family needs peace.
 
13pollitos said:
There are other articles that talk about a coach that was a bully to him and his siblings, probably other kids as well. The coach showed up at the funeral, was asked to leave, and proceeded to post some nasty things on social media. Then this priest wouldn’t even stop when asked by a grieving father.

This family has suffered enough. The poor boy is continuing being bullied even after death! I pray the Good Lord has him in his arms. He deserves to rest, and his family needs peace.
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I saw that article later as well. It is possible that the bullying was a contributing factor to the suicide. I don’t know if the priest mentioned that in the homily (or even if he knew about it), but it could have been a “teachable moment” that could have brought necessary context to the homily.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
This story is making the rounds in the media right now. What do you all think?
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I think the priest and the parish don’t have concern themselves with burying any more members of the Hulliberger family.

People who are mourning the death of a loved one don’t care to hear this kind of message. If the priest couldn’t do any better than this, he should have begged off of this funeral and let someone else do it.

With a lot of families nowadays, funerals are the only time they get together so people are going to remember this.

When other folks that were at this requiem pass, some of them are likely to go for an alternative funeral plan.
 
Sarcelle said:
Didn’t the Church do exactly that for priests who committed way worst crimes than speaking thoughtlessly?
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The difference is that those priests committed crimes. Covering up a crime and letting the offender do it again is at best, very poor judgment and at worst, a crime in itself.

A homily that observes that a suicide might go to hell is very insensitive, but it is not a crime. It is not even against Church teaching. Any one of us has the possibility of going to Hell if we sin and do not repent sufficiently before death. From what I read, the priest did not say the young man was in Hell. He said we don’t know. This is correct. Suicide is also grave matter and could indeed send someone to Hell. However, it’s implicit in the fact that this young man was given a Catholic church funeral that the Church thinks there’s a good chance he was saved; the priest just did not emphasize that.

I think barring him from handling future funerals is the best thing here. He cannot just go somewhere else and do it again if he isn’t being allowed to say funerals and all his homilies are being reviewed.
 
It’s true that this priest’s insensitivity isn’t criminal. But if this is an example of his usual pastoral approach, should this man even be a parish priest?
 
I guess I have to wonder how many Catholics at that funeral have decided to part company with the Church? People have been driven away over far less.

Voltaire said it right: “The problem with common sense is that it is not all that common.”

Given what the Church has been teaching for some time now, one has to wonder how much that priest pays any attention to the teaching authority.

I am not suggesting the priest should be canonizing the young man at the funeral. But given that the majority of suicides appear to be driven by a combination of depression and an intense sense of isolation and the Church has spoken about how that can affect one’s reasoning, the priest was inappropriate (and that is the mildest word I can find).
 
I don’t believe that the family is acting entirely appropriate. Furthermore, they’re demonstrating a lack of knowledge concerning the Catholic Funeral Right.

Concerning the Funeral:

“We wanted him to celebrate how Maison lived”
  • In the words of Cincinnati Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk, “The funeral liturgy is a celebration of salvation and mercy, of grace and eternal life. It is not meant to be a commemoration (much less a canonization) of the person who has died.”
“The couple also claims that Fr. LaCuesta denied them the chance to eulogize their son, as had been discussed in advance.”
  • In the revised General Instruction of the Roman Missal promulgated by John Paul II in year 2000 (GIRM 2000), this prohibition of eulogies was again restated: “At the Funeral Mass there should, as a rule, be a short homily, but never a eulogy of any kind.”.
  • According to the USCCB, “It (The Vigil Service) is most appropriate, when family and friends are gathered together for visitation, to offer time for recalling the life of the deceased. For this reason, eulogies are usually encouraged to be done at the funeral home during visitation or at the Vigil Service.”
Concerning Fr. LaCuesta:

“He grew up in the Philippines, attended Sacred Heart Seminary in Detroit and was ordained in 2006, then lived for a time in a Catholic order’s house in Grosse Pointe before becoming a church pastor.”
  • His record is hazy but he doesn’t “appear” to have a lot of experience. He did grow up in an entirely different culture. Finally, nobody knows whether or not this Priest has a Medical condition that “could” cause a serious lapse in judgment.
Concerning Coach Jeff Wood:

“While grieving, the Hullibarger family did have one firm, unique request: They did not want his high school coach to attend their son’s funeral.”
  • Last I looked, the family cannot ban people from attending the Service. The family does not own the Funeral Mass. Nevertheless, following etiquette, the coach shouldn’t have imposed himself if he knew their wishes. Furthermore, he shouldn’t have vented on Twitter.
 
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I think the family is acting out of a really deepset grief. Unless and until you have lost a child or come really up close and personal to doing so, it is hard to convey the depth of that grief and pain.

And I seriously doubt that the great majority - perhaps even the vast majority - of Catholics have the faintest clue concerning the Catholic Funeral Rite.

There are a number of ways the priest could have addressed the homily without either canonizing the youth or giving a de facto eulogy. Sorry, but I am not willing to cut the priest some slack. His comments were totally and completely inappropriate at that moment. And that is not a denial of the fact that the child may not make it to heaven; it flat out was not the time or place and I don’t give two figs if the priest is from the Philippines. To boot it off as “Well maybe culturally there it would be okay” simply doesn’t cut it.
 
It would be nice if we had enough priests that we could be choosy about picking the best ones to serve particular parishes. The fact is, we have a priest shortage and they need every priest they can get.

Also, given that this priest appears to possibly be from a different culture, he may have been imported from some other area or even some other country to serve. He may end up getting sent somewhere that jives better with his culture. It’s my understanding that some priests from a Filipino or Hispanic or African background can express a much tougher attitude toward sin than what you typically get from the average US priest.
 
Tis_Bearself said:
It’s my understanding that some priests from a Filipino or Hispanic or African background can express a much tougher attitude toward sin than what you typically get from the average US priest.
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As I learned in Public Speaking: Know Your Audience

I seriously doubt that there was malicious intent. I believe that this was a case of Good Intentions and Poor Expression.
 
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Yes

I talked to Filipinos I know and they all agreed that the priest was out of line in his homily.

It is simply bad form to do that, both here and in the Philippines.
 
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Good to know. I would hope that all priests everywhere would show sensitivity towards persons who committed suicide in this day and age, when the Church clearly teaches that we have the hope of salvation for such persons.
 
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