In the Chicago Outfit, having the right connections could open doors. But in June 1986, those same connections closed the doors of a Forest Park church.
Anthony “Tony the Ant” Spilotro was one of the Chicago Outfit’s most notorious figures, serving as its representative in Las Vegas during the 1970s and 1980s. His younger brother, Michael Spilotro, lived in Oak Park with his family and belonged to St. Bernardine Catholic Church in neighboring Forest Park.
On June 14, 1986, the brothers disappeared after leaving Michael’s home in Oak Park. Eight days later, their bodies were discovered buried in a cornfield near Morocco, Indiana. Both men had been brutally murdered in what investigators suspected was an organized-crime execution.
The killings shocked the Chicago area, but another controversy soon emerged—this time involving the Catholic Church.
On June 24, the Archdiocese of Chicago ruled that the Spilotro brothers would not receive a public Catholic church funeral because of their connections to organized crime. Church officials cited canon law provisions intended to prevent public scandal.
The decision was particularly controversial in Forest Park, where Michael, his wife, and their three children were parishioners at St. Bernardine. Although Michael had been linked to criminal activity, some neighbors and fellow parishioners defended him and expressed dismay over the Church’s decision.
Father Ronald Navoy of St. Bernardine acknowledged the community’s reaction, while explaining that the ruling concerned eligibility for public funeral rites rather than a judgment about the brothers’ eternal salvation.
Despite the prohibition on a church funeral, the Spilotro brothers were not denied a funeral altogether.
On June 27, approximately 500 family members, friends, and other mourners attended services at Salerno’s Galewood Chapel in Chicago. Father John Fearon of St. Bernardine led a brief religious service, offered words of forgiveness, and joined the mourners in reciting the Lord’s Prayer.
Among those attending were actor Robert Conrad, who had known Michael, and Herbert “Fat Herbie” Blitzstein, a former associate of Tony’s Las Vegas operation.
The brothers were subsequently buried at Queen of Heaven Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois.
The controversy illustrated an unusual collision between two institutions with very different ideas about loyalty, reputation, and authority. For men accustomed to operating through powerful connections, those connections became the very reason they were denied a traditional church funeral.
Sometimes, even the Chicago Outfit had to answer to a higher authority.
