December 2, 2008
DEATH OF A DON
No Funeral Mass
Church to allow memorial service after interment
Mob boss John Gotti will not be given a Roman Catholic funeral Mass but may be interred at St. John Cemetery in Middle Village, church officials said yesterday.
Instead of a Mass of Christian Burial, Gotti will be allowed a Mass for the dead, a memorial service in which the coffin is not inside the church.
"The diocese has decided that there can be a Mass for the dead sometime after the burial of John Gotti," the Rev. Andrew Vaccari, chancellor of the Diocese of Brooklyn, said in a statement.
"We felt it would be a more reverent, prayerful, religious service without the body present," Vaccari told Newsday when asked why the diocese decided on the particular service for the mob boss held responsible for at least five murders during his reign as the head of the Gambino crime family.
Gotti's relatives had no comment on the Mass denial and did not appear last night for a planned family news conference at the Palace Hotel in midtown.
Gotti, who died from complications of neck and throat cancer in a federal prison hospital in Springfield, Mo., Monday, is not the first mob figure to be denied a funeral Mass.
Paul Castellano, the Gambino crime family boss whose 1985 murder Gotti orchestrated, was also not allowed a funeral Mass. But former detective Joseph Coffey, who investigated the mob, remembered that Castellano did have a memorial service in church after he was buried.
In Roman Catholic practice, a funeral Mass is usually done with the body present in a coffin, which is covered by a special shroud. Incense and special prayers are also part of the Mass.
A Mass for the dead can be celebrated for anyone who is deceased at any time, Vaccari explained.
Allowing a Mass for Gotti without his body in the church apparently is a way for the diocese to get around the sticky problem of allowing a service in a house of worship for the man who once headed the nation's largest organized-crime family.
Gotti, who died while serving a lifetime prison sentence for murder and racketeering, can also be interred in a family vault with his son Frank, inside a massive above-ground crypt at St. John, the resting place for a number of major organized crime figures. Frank Gotti, accidentally killed when he was hit by a neighbor's car in 1980, reposes in a quiet area of the crypt where piped-in spiritual music is heard in the background. The neighbor later disappeared and was likely killed by Gotti underlings, authorities say.
Gotti's body, ravaged by the effects of cancer, arrived in Farmingdale from Springfield last night. The man dubbed the Dapper Don spent his last months at a federal medical center for prisoners.
Gotti's longtime attorney, Bruce Cutler, said that a wake today and tomorrow was possible, with interment on Saturday.
Several of Gotti's relatives are not expected to attend the services.
His older brother, Peter Gotti, is being held without bail on racketeering charges and will not ask federal authorities for a pass to attend the services, Cutler said. Gotti's younger brother, Gene, is serving a 50-year federal prison sentence for heroin dealing.
It is not known if Gotti's son, John A. Gotti, will ask for permission to attend. The younger Gotti is serving a 6-year term for bribery and extortion.
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