After his death earlier this year, Reverend Louis Gigante left his son his secret fortune that few knew he had.
The Roman Catholic priest from the Bronx was the son of Italian immigrants and the brother of a mob boss. He ran a development company that built homes for people in need while defending his crime family.
It wasn’t until his death on Oct. 19 that his will revealed he had a 32-year-old son, going against the Catholic requirement that priests remain celibate, and a $7 million fortune.
Ancient New York Daily News The journalist Salvatore Arena was the first to report the story.
“I nearly fell off my chair,” the reporter said. The New York Times.
Unlike other priests, Father Gigante did not try to hide his son, whose existence was an open secret among those close to the religious leader.
Time he suggested that he “may have escaped the church’s scrutiny over his personal life by the sheer force of his personality.”
Luigino Gigante, born in 1990, grew up in Somers, Westchester County, about an hour from his father’s parish, the St. Athanasius Roman Catholic Church. Gigante’s father and his son lived with the child’s mother.
“We had a quiet life,” said Gigante, now 32. Time. “He was proud of me. We did everything together. »
Of his father’s priesthood, young Mr. Giant said, “It was like another strange thing,”
This was stated by the spokesman of the archdiocese of New York, Joseph Zwilling Time that the church was unaware of Father Gigante’s son “beyond rumours”.
“While each case would be judged and dealt with on its own merits, a priest who fathers a child should provide support to both the child and the mother. Generally, however, priests who have children leave the priesthood, usually voluntarily,” Zwilling told the paper.
Mr. Gigante said he was told the archdiocese knew Father Gigante had a son, but chose to ignore the situation.
Padre Gigante ran several businesses focused on building new properties, amassing a $7 million fortune that was entrusted to a trust fund until he was 40.
“I didn’t take a vow of poverty,” she said Time in 1981. “People think I don’t get paid and that I’m a saint for doing so. It’s their problem.
After losing a primary in a congressional race in 1970, Father Gigante won a leadership position in the local Democratic district. Between 1973 and 1977 he served on the New York City Council.
“At first there were those who thought it was wrong for a priest to be a politician,” he said. Time in 1972. “But when I did them a few favors, those same people changed their minds.”
His brother, Vincent Gigante, was the boss of the Genovese mafia family. Father Gigante supported his brother through what seemed like an act that went on for years. The mob boss walked around Greenwich Village in slippers and a bathrobe, apparently in an attempt to appear mentally ill and avoid prosecution.
Mr. Gigante said his father’s work as a priest was not hidden in his family life, adding that his father allegedly introduced his son to friends with a few words from the Bible: “This is my son, in which I am very happy.”
“I wasn’t a secret,” Gigante said Time.
Peter Cantillo, who worked with Father Gigante at the South East Bronx Community Organization (SEBCO), said Time that the priest “was known” to have a son.
“Nobody really bat an eye. People thought he was a great guy, he did so much for the community,” she added. “He was a man, he had a son. Frank Sinatra’s song – “I Did It My Way” – epitomizes that. He did that what he wanted.”
Father Gigante resigned from the Archdiocese of New York in 2002 at the age of 70, 12 years after the birth of his son.
Two lawsuits were filed against Father Gigante last year, alleging that he sexually abused a girl around the age of 10 in the 1960s and a boy in the 1970s of the same age. Lawsuits have been filed under the Child Victims Act, hundreds of which have been brought against priests in New York State.
The trials against Father Gigante were pending when he died. His son told the newspaper that he has strongly rejected the allegations.
“People might ask about me,” Father Gigante told his son before he attended the City College of New York.
“I said, ‘Yeah, if they ask about you, I’ll just say you’re my father,'” Gigante told the paper. “To be honest with you, I really didn’t care.”
“Your name doesn’t define who you are, it’s your actions,” Gigante said, quoting his father. “He always wanted me to be who I wanted to be.”
At Father Gigante’s funeral, a friend told Mr. Gigante that “after you were born, your father was called” to the archdiocese headquarters.
Mr. Gigante later learned that his father had returned from that meeting, saying that “they asked me if I had a son, and I said, ‘Yes,’ and walked away. And this is all”.
