Church will rule on rites for Gotti

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ASSOCIATED PRESS

NEW YORK — After crime boss "Big Paul" Castellano was gunned down outside a Manhattan steakhouse in 1985, the Catholic Church declined to let his family hold a public funeral Mass.

His executioner, John Gotti, is dying of throat cancer. Will the same fate befall the Dapper Don?

The Diocese of Brooklyn will ultimately make the decision on whether the notorious Gotti — convicted of Castellano’s murder and five others — can receive a funeral Mass.

Gotti, 60, was transferred Thursday from the U.S. Medical Center for Federal Prisoners in Springfield, Mo., to the nearby St. John’s Regional Health Center. Hospital, and prison officials would not say whether his condition had worsened.

There are precedents, besides Castellano, for the church’s refusal to allow high-profile organized crime figures a final sanctified farewell — and Gotti is among the best-known mobsters of the last half-century.

In April 1986, Gotti underboss Frank DeCicco — who helped arrange Castellano’s murder four months earlier — was denied a funeral Mass after he died in a car-bombing outside a Brooklyn social club. The church wanted to avoid "a lot of hullabaloo," a spokesman said.

And in July 1979, Bonanno family boss Carmine Galante was denied a Mass after his slaying in a Brooklyn restaurant. A priest recited prayers at a funeral home service for Galante, a drug dealer and reputed mob hit man.

Gotti, a longtime Queens resident, would likely return to New York for burial — probably at St. John’s Cemetery, where his 12-year-old son, Frank, was buried after the boy died in a 1980 traffic accident.

The cemetery is already the final resting place of mob bosses Carlo Gambino, Vito Genovese and Joe Colombo.

In deciding on the funeral Mass, the church will weigh a Catholic 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 faithful.

"It’s done case by case," diocese spokesman Frank DeRosa said. "A lot of things go into the decision."

Gotti’s daughter, Victoria, flew from New York Thursday to visit him. Gotti’s son, John "Junior" Gotti, is serving a 6 1/2-year sentence for bribery, extortion and fraud.