About 350 people joined Cardinal Timothy Dolan at Gate of Heaven Cemetery’s Queen of Heaven Mausoleum on All Souls’ Day, November 2, 2023.

All Souls’ Day remembers the faithful departed and calls upon the living to pray for their souls, especially those who may no longer have living relatives or friends to pray for them. 

“It is a holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead and one that we should do often,” said Cardinal Timothy Dolan, the principal celebrant and homilist of the Mass.

In his homily, Cardinal Dolan recalled that on the day in 2009 he was named Archbishop of New York, he and his predecessor, Cardinal Edward Egan, toured St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and visited the crypt underneath its main altar, where the previous Archbishops of New York are buried.

Cardinal Dolan lamented that a negative impact of urbanization is that churches stopped being built with cemeteries on their grounds, which serve as a powerful reminder that we will die and be buried, but also that we will be resurrected, “a reminder of our eternal destiny,” he said.

Among those concelebrating with Cardinal Dolan were Monsignor Dennis P. Keane, pastor of Holy Family Church in New Rochelle and a trustee of St. Patrick’s Cathedral; and Father Stephen Ries.

“We honor and recognize that the faithful departed are never forgotten,” said Mary Ellen Gerrity, executive director of the Trustees of St. Patrick’s Cathedral. “It is our Catholic teaching and tradition that all Catholics should be buried in consecrated ground,” which Catholic cemeteries are, she continued. Gerrity added that in addition to special Masses on Memorial Day and All Souls’ Day, the faithful departed are remembered at Masses at Calvary and Allied Cemeteries, which administers Gate of Heaven Cemetery, on the first Saturday of each month. 

Established in 1917, Gate of Heaven Cemetery lies between the Westchester County towns of Valhalla and Hawthorne. It is the final resting place of a number of noteworthy Catholic New Yorkers, including New York Yankees legend George Herman “Babe” Ruth and his wife Clare; former Yankees player and manager Alfred Manuel “Billy” Martin Jr.; actor James Cagney and his wife Frances; author Mary Higgins Clark; former New York City Mayors Jimmy Walker and John P. O’Brien; priest and writer Malachi Martin; and survivors of the sinking of R.M.S. Titanic.

Along with Gate of Heaven Cemetery, Calvary and Allied Cemeteries include Ascension Cemetery in Airmont; Calvary Cemetery in Woodside; Resurrection Cemetery in Staten Island; St. Ann’s Cemetery in Kingston; and St. Mary’s Cemetery in Rye Brook.