Church Denies Gotti A Funeral Mass

Mob boss John Gotti will be buried in a Catholic cemetery alongside his beloved son, but his family was denied permission to hold a funeral Mass for the convicted killer, the Diocese of Brooklyn said Wednesday.

Gotti, responsible for at least five murders during his bloody reign atop the Gambino crime family, will not receive a Mass of Christian burial, said the Rev. Andrew Vaccari, diocesan chancellor.

Instead, Vaccari said in a one-sentence statement, "there can be a Mass for the dead sometime after the burial of John Gotti."

The decision on the Mass, two days after Gotti died of cancer in a prison hospital, echoed the ruling made by church officials after the Gotti-ordered murder of his Gambino predecessor, Paul Castellano.

Castellano's family received permission for a private Mass after his burial, but was denied a funeral Mass with the body in the church.

Gotti's remains were removed from a Missouri prison on Tuesday for his eventual return to New York and his family, which has been splintered by federal prosecution of the mob. Two of his brothers, his son and his ex-son-in-law were all jailed at the time of his death; another brother and a nephew were under indictment.

Gotti will end up in the family mausoleum that holds his son Frank, who died at 12 when he was struck by a neighbor's car while riding a minibike near his Howard Beach home.

The neighbor, 51-year-old John Favara, disappeared four months after the accident. He was reportedly murdered by Gambino henchmen at the mobster's request, while Gotti and his wife vacationed in Florida.

The mausoleum is inside St. John's Cemetery in Queens, where an assortment of Mafia figures found their final resting spots. Those buried at St. John's include Carlo Gambino, Carmine Galante, Vito Genovese and Charles "Lucky" Luciano.

Castellano was denied burial in a Catholic ceremony and a funeral Mass because of his life of crime. Castellano, killed in December 1985 on Gotti's orders, was buried in a nonsectarian cemetery in Staten Island.

While final word of funeral arrangements had not come down, Gotti's older brother Peter will not attend either the funeral or the wake. Peter Gotti, held without bail last week on a racketeering charge, will not ask federal authorities for a pass to either event, said his attorney, Bruce Cutler.

When the Gottis' father died in 1992, John Gotti refused to ask federal authorities for dispensation to attend those services.

Gotti's younger brother, Gene, is serving a 50-year sentence for heroin dealing and was unlikely to make the funeral.

There was no word from the attorney for Gotti's son, John "Junior" Gotti, on whether he would seek a pass to attend the wake and funeral. The younger Gotti was halfway through a 6-1/2-year jail term for bribery and extortion.

In addition to Castellano, the church has denied a funeral Mass to other mobsters: Galante and Gotti underboss Frank DeCicco.

At issue is a church precept called "scandal" — the idea that by granting a funeral Mass to someone who lived outside church teachings, the wrong message would be sent to the church faithful.

The denial is not a judgment on the deceased's lifestyle, since the church believes that only God can make that determination.