The Scandal of Shane MacGowan's Requiem Mass

I admit this is a sensitive time for me personally, but witnessing the recent funeral Mass of Shane MacGowan on the day my brother died filled me with anger. It triggered a "Mundabor Moment."

I have helped prepare funeral services for my parents, my sister and youngest brother, and am thinking ahead to John's service. The priests have always had the final say over readings, hymns and eulogies, and ensured they stayed centred on the liturgical purpose of the Mass. And that's how it should be. 

The Rites for Catholic funeral services are subject to norms - a summary is available here. 

The Church through its funeral rites commends the dead to God’s merciful love and pleads for the forgiveness of their sins. At the funeral rites, especially at the celebration of the eucharistic sacrifice, the Christian community affirms and expresses the union of the Church on earth with the Church in heaven in the one great communion of saints. Though separated from the living, the dead are still at one with the community of believers on earth and benefit from their prayers and intercession. At the rite of final commendation and farewell, the community acknowledges the reality of separation and commends the deceased to God. In this way it recognises the spiritual bond that still exists between the living and the dead and proclaims its belief that all the faithful will be raised up and reunited in the new heavens and a new earth, where death will be no more. 

The celebration of the Christian funeral brings hope and consolation to the living. While proclaiming the Gospel of Jesus Christ and witnessing to Christian hope in the resurrection, the funeral rites also recall to all who take part in them God’s mercy and judgment and meet the human need to turn always to God in times of crisis.

Contrary to common assumption, the purpose of the Catholic funeral Mass is not to celebrate the life of the deceased. It is to offer worship to God for Christ’s victory over death, to comfort the mourners with prayers; and, most significantly, to pray for the soul of the deceased. 

A Requiem Mass is not merely an expression of grief or a “celebration” of a person’s life. The celebrant may express a few words of gratitude about the person’s life in his homily. He may allow a relative or a friend to say a few words about the deceased during the concluding rite, but these remarks must be brief. Relatives or friends who wish to speak of the deceased’s character and accomplishments can do so at a prayer service held at the graveside following the rite of committal or at the crematorium. 

With increasing frequency, Catholic funerals are now taking a different approach. Priests are giving homilies that tell of the life that the deceased lived, the decedent’s love of various sports teams, and his family. They eulogize and label it a “homily.” After Communion, members of the man’s family are called to the pulpit to offer eulogies of their own and postulate about what they believe their loved one is doing in heaven. 

We pray for the dead in part because we acknowledge that people, no matter how much we love them, might not be in heaven. Thus, we pray for them, sacrifice for them, and offer Masses for them. Proclamations about what our loved one is doing in heaven undermine this. 

Recalling from the pulpit fond memories about the deceased distracts us from what is most important and from what our obligations are to the dead now. Pastoral care nowadays shies away from discussion of purgatory. The doctrine of Purgatory is not “feel-good.” It requires candid acknowledgment of sin, judgment, and justice. But we cannot pretend truth away just because it’s uncomfortable. It’s egregious to insert into a funeral Mass what is more suitable for a wake. 

The Irish wake is the time for eulogies, talking amongst friends and family of a life well lived. Often musical instruments are played, there will be a sing-song, some boisterous and some lamentations. It is a time of mourning, but with an Irish flavour. Death is front and centre, it is not hidden away. 

Shane MacGowan’s was more wake than funeral. It lasted 3 hours; there was singing and dancing, great merriment, and many lengthy eulogies. Parish Priest, Fr Pat Gilbert, talked of the “poet, lyricist, singer, trailblazer” repeatedly in his homily, and how the recently deceased “connected the cultural, the sociological, the spiritual, the physical and the metaphysical into a coherent translation of what was happening all around us.” It can be read here. His wife came close to praising his drink and drug use, saying it was inspirational and drove his creativity. Shame on her; and shame on the priest for permitting this glorification of drug use which will have contributed to the shortening of Shane's life.

And therein lies the rub of this funeral Mass. Many that attend Church funerals no longer know, and often no longer care, that the funeral is a religious event where the Church “seeks spiritual support for the deceased, honours their bodies, and at the same time brings the solace of hope to the living.” The Final Commendation and the Rite of Committal are almost totally unknown. The Funeral Mass now for many is a social, celebratory and performative event taking precedence over the eternal. The life lived is more important than the soul that carries on. Many priests are unwilling to give guidance and to explicitly outline the requirements of the Church and the Requiem Mass. Often, they want to be accommodating to the requests of the family of the deceased to say final kind words, to play a much-loved tune. This human desire is understandable. But then it becomes impossible to find where to draw the line. 

Many see the Church funeral as a public good, and with that expect bespoke services on demand. Any attempts by the clergy to say “thus far shall you go” are met with apoplexy and incredulity. This was particularly evident at Shane MacGowan’s funeral. 

YouTube is filled with videos of this shameful and sacrilegious event. Here it is in full - not recommended watching:

Maybe I'm being over critical; maybe not. 

One blogger wrote:

One of the most common talking points offered in defence of the funeral concert (it cannot, really, be called a funeral “mass” in the traditional sense) for Shane McGowan is that the deceased, aside from being a wonderful and gifted musician, was also a practicing Catholic. He deserved, they say, a send-off in a church. 

This rather misses the point: Practicing Catholics, surely, practice their faith because they believe in it. And what they deserve is not a send-off in a church, but an actual Catholic funeral. To honour the practice of somebody’s faith in life, you honour the rituals of that faith in their death. Simply moving an irreligious and secular musical tribute session inside a church does not make that event a Catholic funeral ...

For the Roman Catholic Church to have permitted a funeral mass to be transformed into a secular music concert strikes this writer as both a mistake by the Church and something about which many Catholics have genuine cause to be legitimately upset. The point of a church is to make people feel closer to God, not closer to a deceased, and mortal, human being. That is why the music usually played in churches is religious in nature, and not something, in the advent season, that contains the lyrics “happy Christmas your arse”. The point of a funeral is to pray for the repose of a soul, not to create or reinforce a sense of earthly immortality for the deceased. 

Finally, the point of the Church as an institution is to defend and uphold the practice of the Roman Catholic religion. Setting a precedent like this, in such a high profile way, immediately undercuts and undermines every Priest in the country (and presumably many further afield) who wish to educate people about the true purpose of a funeral mass and keep funerals focused on what the Catholic faith teaches.

And the Catholic Herald commented: 

So many performing and attending saw nothing wrong with the musicians moving front and centre of the altar, in front of the Tabernacle, in front of the cross, to sing “Fairytale of New York.” 

So few felt little wrong with the most famous and well-known ribald words of the song being sung in God’s house. Shane MacGowan was, is, a Catholic. He, as Fr Gilbert noted, had “great faith in Our Blessed Lady and received Holy Communion from this church regularly.” It is reported he requested and received the Last Rites before he died. 

Would he have wanted this for the Church and for his funeral? I don’t know. But like others there, perhaps, they know not what they do. And even if they know, most simply do not believe. And if they do not believe, then, well, what is the harm in singing an aul’ song at the altar and doing a few jigs and waltzes across the aisle? Why not wave your hands in the air, replicating the praise of a gospel choir but doing it to the words no longer directed at the divine but at the gutter. 

But there are Catholics that know. The Irish Catholic Bishops know. But little is said. And the destruction of the Funeral Rite will go on as others will look to the funeral of Shane MacGowan and think: “I want that. I want that for me. I want it for my Da. I want it for my Ma.” And how can they be denied? The priest who says no will be hauled over social media for being insensitive, for being rigid. For being Catholic.

I was never a fan of Shane MacGowan or of the Pogues. By all accounts, he was a sincere and faithful Catholic who after years of abusing himself with drink and drugs, managed to reform his life. 

He deserved better.

May he rest in peace.