The Roman Catholic archdiocese of New York City has condemned a funeral service for transgender activist Cecilia Gentili at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral after congregants cheered her for being celebrated as “the mother of all whores”.

The packed funeral took place on Thursday, 10 days after the Argentinian-born Gentili, 52, died at her Brooklyn home.

Gentili was an activist and actor known for her advocacy on behalf of sex workers, as well as a self-professed atheist, drug addict and author of Faltas: Letters to Everyone in My Hometown Who Isn’t My Rapist. Her cause of death has not been revealed.

The archdiocese condemned the funeral, saying some mourners behaved scandalously at the service, which featured a turnout closer in number to the midtown Manhattan cathedral’s jam-packed Easter mass than a normal Thursday, with many transgender congregants lavishly dressed for Gentili’s send-off.

The archdiocese released a statement on Saturday saying it had “no idea our welcome and prayer would be degraded in such a sacrilegious and deceptive way”. The pastor of Saint Patrick’s, Enrique Salvo, said the church was not aware of Gentili’s background or beliefs when it booked the service.

Before the service was held, the archdiocese had described it as a routine event and had been informed that Gentili was a transgender activist.

“The cathedral only knew that family and friends were requesting a funeral mass,” he said. Yet some mourners then exhibited “scandalous behaviour”, the church said.

The church said it did not take issue with Gentili’s sexuality. But the church objected to the actions of some of the mourners, including some who cheered loudly when Gentili was hailed as “Santa Cecilia, la madre de todos las putas” – which is Spanish for “Saint Cecilia, the mother of all whores”.

CatholicVote called the funeral “unbelievable and sick” and said it was “a mockery of the Christian faith”. Among other critics, Nicholas Gregoris of the Priestly Society of Saint John Henry Cardinal Newman called Gentili’s service “revolting” and a “desecration” of the US’s most famous Catholic church.

But on the ideological flip side of the faith, Catholic liberals said the church had done a good thing by hosting the service for a transgender woman. Before the backlash took hold, archdiocese spokesperson Joseph Zwilling said that “a funeral is one of the corporal works of mercy”.

The organizer of the funeral, Ceyenne Doroshow, told the New York Times that Gentili’s family had kept her background “under wraps” from the church. And Doroshow said she had wanted to her funeral to be at Saint Patrick’s because “it is an icon, just like her”.

Gentili’s family later said that the archdiocese had acted with “hypocrisy and anti-trans hatred,” and the queer community would continue to celebrate her for how she “ministered, mothered and loved all people”.

“Her heart and hands reached those the sanctimonious church continues to belittle, oppress and chastise,” the family said. “The only deception present at Saint Patrick’s Cathedral is that it claims to be a welcoming place for all.”

According to Vogue, Gentili’s funeral began with a song by her Pose co-star Billy Porter. “We’re going to think of her in another realm,” Doroshow told the congregants. “In a place where everything is beautiful and shiny.”

The crowd went wild during the ceremony when Gentili was crowned “madre de las putas,” Vogue noted.

“It’s Cecilia day,” artist and organizer Rio Sofia said. “She’s an immigrant, so it’s international. It’s a day to celebrate the fact that we flooded Saint Patrick’s Cathedral with trans people. That was nothing less than historic.”

Organizer Fran Tirado said that being called a whore was one of the highest compliments Gentili could give. “Cecilia was never a victim,” Rio Sofia recently wrote online. Sex work, to Gentili, was work just like any other.

In an interview with the Guardian last year, Gentili said: “Sex work, not for nothing, is the oldest profession. People need to survive. And we’re not going anywhere.”