The Archdiocese of Detroit has suspended a priest from presiding over funerals after he defied the wishes of the parents of a deceased teenager and denounced suicide as “an act against God,” The Hill reported on Sunday.
The parents of Maison Hullibarger, an 18-year-old who took his own life, said they had asked Rev. Don LaCuesta to focus on their son’s life rather than how he died during the homily.
“Maison didn’t deserve this," the boy's mother told the The New York Times. "He basically called him a sinner in front of everybody. We were just blindsided.”
The bereaved father at one point during the service even approached the pulpit and told LaCuesta to stop, but the pastor continued denouncing the way their son's life ended, according to The Detroit Free Press.
The couple said that LaCuesta also tried to keep them from eulogizing their son, even though that had been agreed on in advance as part of the service.
The church apologized, saying “that an unbearable situation was made even more difficult,” and that the family was not served as they should have been served.”
The family’s pain was made even greater by the appearance at the funeral of their late son's high school football coach, who they said had bullied him and their other sons. The coach came to the funeral even though he had been requested not to and then, when asked to leave, posted on social media a sneer at the family’s tragedy.
The school district’s superintendent then fired the coach.
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