26 October 2008

Disposing of a dead body


...the national Catholic Cemetery Conference is raising alarms about a potential option for disposing of human bodies in which a lye solution dissolves tissues into a sterile, syrupy substance that can be safely flushed down a drain.

"I guess I don't know how to say it any better than it's a desecration," Deacon Tylutki said. "The process has no dignity and respect for the human body. In our faith, the body is the temple of the Holy Spirit."

...Tylutki said the church accepted the practice of cremation in 1963 but taught clearly that it was not a sign denying the sacredness of the human body. The cremated remains are to be treated with reverence and interred, not kept in an urn in the house, scattered on the seas or kept in a locket.
What utter rot. I have to imagine that such words come from people who think that human bodies after death remain in a state of purity like the preserved saints. They need to familiarize themselves with the process of decomposition. The process is much less dignified than having a corpse consumed by vultures.

And re disposing of cremated ashes, my uncle's ashes have been recycled in the Gulf of Mexico, my father's in the harbor of a lake, and mine will fertilize a woods (or be sprinkled in the cats' litter box if I misbehave).

Source link found at J-Walk. Image credit here.

No comments:

Post a Comment