Priest Pulled From Funerals After Repeatedly Citing Teenager’s Suicide in ‘Pastoral Disaster’

By Mihir Zaveri and Jacey Fortin
Dec. 16, 2018

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They recalled the priest, the Rev. Don LaCuesta, taking notes. They anticipated uplifting words for the friends and relatives attending the funeral at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Catholic Church, where all six of their children were baptized and confirmed.

The homily that Father LaCuesta delivered at the church in Temperance, Mich., about 10 miles north of Toledo, Ohio, on Dec. 8, four days after Maison died, did not resemble that conversation, the Hullibargers said on Sunday. Instead, the priest spoke about how suicide was “against God who made us and everyone who loves us” but how Maison would still have a chance of salvation. A copy of the remarks he prepared show the word “suicide” appeared six times.

The family’s grief already seemed unbearable, but the homily’s focus on how he died made it worse. The episode, which gained widespread attention, prompted the Archdiocese of Detroit to say in a statement on Saturday that Father LaCuesta would not preside over funeral services for the foreseeable future and would get help to become a better minister in difficult situations.

The news of what happened also put a spotlight on the tensions between traditionalist stances in the Roman Catholic Church about suicides and more nuanced thinking that has evolved over time about the issue, experts said.

“Maison didn’t deserve this. He basically called him a sinner in front of everybody,” Ms. Hullibarger said. “We were just blindsided.”

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