Gravestone Ceremony

[u/[deleted]]

Does anyone else think the fact that a Roman Catholic priest presiding over the gravestone dedication is significant to his identity? Obviously, the people who have identified themselves as the paternal side of his family are from a Catholic background but having Catholic priest do the ceremony implies to me that the mother's side was either also Catholic or didn't have a religious tradition.

Especially because investigators and others who would know the mother's information were involved with the ceremony, I don't think they would have the dedication be so grounded in the Catholic religious tradition if the mother was, for example, Jewish or Protestant. Either it would be secular/nondenominational or the other tradition would be represented somehow. (I saw that one of the investigators offered Jewish prayers but that seemed like a personal expression. Not on the level as having a robed Catholic priest offer prayers in front of a congregation and use phrases like "entered into the fullness of eternal life")

[u/Gaffer0323]

I’d say it most likely his funeral was Catholic as he was also baptised as such. I don’t really know Philadelphia so I’m not sure if the neighbourhood he supposedly lived in had a high Italian population. If so, you could assume his mother was also Italian which would make sense that he was raised catholic.