CNA Staff, Nov 2, 2023 / 14:13 pm
Brooklyn Bishop Robert Brennan is “appalled” that a church there was used to shoot a provocative music video, the diocese said this week, with the prelate set to investigate why the more-than-100-year-old parish permitted the controversial video to be recorded on its property.
A newly released music video by pop musician Sabrina Carpenter showed the American-born singer dancing provocatively on the altar at the historic 19th-century Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Brooklyn.
The Oct. 31 music video of the song “Feather,” which has amassed more than 2 million views on YouTube, included scenes shot both inside and outside the church. Carpenter appeared at one point in the video with no pants while profane decorations lay atop and around the altar.
The video depicted several men fighting over the singer and eventually killing each other over her; their funeral coffins appear to end up in the Catholic church in the video.
One of those coffins says “RIP B—-.” Several items like cloths, candles, small statutes, a coffin, and a vase appearing to hold a dark liquid that says “RIP” are sitting on the altar, while the tabernacle remains hidden behind them and the church’s statue of the Blessed Virgin Mary looks down from atop the altar.
A Nov. 2 statement from the Diocese of Brooklyn to CNA said that Bishop Brennan “is appalled at what was filmed at Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary Church in Brooklyn.”
“The parish did not follow diocesan policy regarding the filming on Church property, which includes a review of the scenes and script,” the statement said.
The parish reportedly told the diocese that the production company “failed to accurately represent the video content,” with the diocese adding that Brennan “is taking this matter seriously and will be looking into it further.”
CNA reached out to the church’s pastor, Monsignor Jamie Gigantiello, for comment but did not receive a response before publication time.
Mia Barnes, the director of the music video, also did not respond to a request for comment.
The Annunciation of the Blessed Virgin Mary parish was established in 1863, according to the New York City chapter of the American Guild of Organists.
For more than 100 years the church has been a home to Lithuanian Catholics, according to the Tablet, the diocesan newspaper.
In 2022 the church welcomed Lithuanian President Gitanas Nausėda, where the leader pledged his country’s support for its southern neighbor Ukraine in the war that Russia had launched earlier that year, the Tablet reported.
Other articles from the Tablet show that the church has hosted other Lithuanian leaders such as Archbishop Gintaras Grušas of Vilnius in 2019 and the former head of state Vytautas Landsbergis in 2017.
Annunciation is “the only church in the New York metropolitan area that offers a weekly Sunday Mass in Lithuanian,” according to the Tablet.
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When bishops [perhaps Bishop Brennan has is different] permit the gay banner crowd to decorate churches and virtually take over the Gospel message then anything goes. Disturbed pastors will respond in kind.
Pope Francis welcomes the gay banner folks, regardless of whether they don’t conform to ‘crystalized ideologies’, rather the opposite. It’s logical. You can’t appease Pope Francis on this and other moral practices and expect to please Our Lord.
Reading up on the pastor Msgr Gigantiello, he’s a celebrity among celebrities with a background of hotel management, cuisine, fundraising, has a home he shares with his priest idol Msgr Cassato in Westhampton NY. He’s involved in fundraising for education of impoverished children.
He may not have been entirely aware of the altar production with so many contacts involved in the parish. Although like all of us we’re responsible as pastors. As was Cardinal Schönborn, who was chastised by Benedict XVI 2010 for suggesting practicing homosexuals be permitted to receive communion. Schönborn who later presided over a gay dance troupe performing in the sanctuary of St Stephens Cathedral Vienna, one homosexual prancing on the communion rail. With toleration of that affront to Christ by a high ranked prelate, underlings have reason to feel free in promoting the same. We’re living in a corrupted Church that requires serious cleansing. It seems we’re begging for that, perhaps the big one. God have mercy on us all.
The Pastor takes final responsibility for what happens in his own parish. The buck stops with HIM. Why then the constant reference to the inanimate object ” the Parish” as the object of blame??? Unless it can be proven that one of his curates deliberately gave permission for this while the pastor was away, the pastor should be blamed, and receive a major penalty. Removal from his parish, and a long time spent away doing penance someplace. The church is more and more not only looking like sodom, but making excuses that somehow, in spite of thousands of years of tradition,that disrespect and blasphemy in a church setting is ok. Of ALL people, a priest should know better than to allow any such thing. Its disgusting. I agree that I am apprehensive that God will decide he has had enough of it. We need a conservative Pope who will do a thorough house-cleaning and remove once and for all these super liberal churchmen at ALL levels. Lets hope the church can survive until then.