Gangster funerals

There’s an interesting piece (if you find this sort of thing interesting) in the Australian magazine Eureka Street, a very interesting looking publication promoted by the Australian Jesuits, but remarkably non-doctrinaire and broadminded in its treatment of things.

The piece, by Andrew Hamilton, a theologian from Melbourne, debates the sort of funeral appropriate for child abusers and for criminals like Carl Williams. He begins:

In the last month Catholic funerals have led to controversy. Many Catholics complained that Carl Williams was allowed burial in a Catholic Church. And some victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church expressed anger that bishops and priests in robes glorified the funeral of a priest who had been charged with sexual abuse of minors, but who died before the case could be brought.

We are all sinners, but where, if anywhere, should a line be drawn, especially now that most religious funerals will contain an element of life celebration?

The focus on the life of the dead person makes funerals of notorious malefactors problematic. When all involved in the funeral see themselves as sinners, brought together to pray for God’s mercy upon another sinner, it will seem natural that public sinners should have a church funeral which is widely attended.

But if funerals are seen only to commemorate the life of the dead, to praise their virtues, and to commend them to shared memory, those who attend may be seen to endorse the quality of the dead person’s life. They come, not just to bury the dead, but to praise them. If the funeral evokes the virtues of a scoundrel whose life was publicly scandalous, those who take part may seem to be complicit in a lie. Church officers who celebrate the funeral or make the church building available may also be seen as reprehensible.

Hamilton concludes:

Within the Christian community splendid ceremonies with processions of robed bishops and priests may heighten the sense that the dead person is precious in God’s eyes and may evoke God’s mercy. But those whom a dead priest has abused and the wider society are as likely to see in the celebration an enactment of power and defiance.

In such funerals it may be better to draw on the resources of Catholic liturgy that allow people to gather to seek forgiveness, express grief and pray for conversion. Plain dress, an unornamented church, honest prayers and periods of silence can express respect for the dead person and our shared need of God’s mercy. A one-style liturgy does not fit all circumstances.

Read it all here.

Another gangster funeral story. Why another? Because gangster funerals are the other side of the coin of state or royal funerals. They offer spectacle.

Freshly interred in Australia is Carl ‘Fat Boy’ Williams. The convicted drug smuggler and murderer was just six years into a minimum 35-year sentence when he was beaten to death with parts of an exercise bike by fellow inmates in high security Barwon prison.

Fat Boy was the man behind gang wars in Melbourne which claimed thirty lives. Go to Wikipedia and find out all about him.

Peter Nordern, formerly chaplain of Pentridge prison, Melbourne, offered this advice to the officiating priest:

I got some early guidance [in conducting the funerals of criminals] from an old mentor, Father John Brosnan, my predecessor as chaplain at Pentridge Prison. I remember attending the funeral of Brian Kane, who was shot dead while enjoying a quiet ale in the Quarry Hotel in Brunswick in 1982.

As a trainee Jesuit at the time, I sat in the back pew at St John’s Church in East Melbourne, as “The Bros” began.

“There are three things that we do as we come together today for Brian’s funeral: we pray for the deceased, we extend our support and comfort to those who grieve and we look for a lesson for our own lives.”

On another occasion, as I attended Sunday morning church service at Pentridge during those years, “The Bros” told the assembled inmates that he had buried another well-known crim that week.

As he spoke, an old lag from the back called out: “But Fr Bros, Billy didn’t even believe in God.” Fr Brosnan paused a while, then a big smile stretched across his face from ear and ear, and he replied: “He does now!”

Watch Williams’s casket and family arrive at the church in which two of his victims’ funerals were held here.

We all acknowledge the link between sex and death – but what is it that links crime with death? A really good gangster funeral is a sight to see. These guys do not go incognito into that good night. Having shunned any sort of limelight all their lives, this is when they step out from the shadows.

Power talks. As does popularity. Most societies cherish their Krays and Capones.

Here’s a corker from Taiwan:

Gangster Lee Chao-hsiung died last month of liver cancer at the age of 73. He was accorded a 108-car procession and 2,000 chanting Buddhist monks and nuns. Twenty thousand spectators lined the route for a mile. A leading light of the Bamboo Union, Taiwan’s largest gang, brought 500 mobsters with him. The leader of the Heavenly Way mob brought another 500. The head of the Four Seas brought 300, and there were delegations from Japan’s yakuza and the Hong Kong and Macau triads.

The funeral was organised by the Speaker of Taiwan’s legislature.

Full account here.

Any thoughts?