28 April 2013

Catholic wife and Protestant husband, separated after death by religious bigotry


Relevant text from the Reddit thread:
Grave of a Catholic woman and her Protestant husband. The Protestant Colonel of Cavalry, JWC of Gorkum married the Catholic damsel JCPH of Aefferden. This "mixed" marriage, at that time (the 19th century), would have given them trouble. The wife wanted to be buried next to her husband, but the difference in their denomination would not allow that. So the Colonel was buried in the Protestant part, against the separation wall and his wife was buried on the Catholic side.
Here's the cemetery (Roermond, The Netherlands) on Google maps (you can see the monuments from the street view camera!)

18 comments:

  1. I think that it's very reasonable for a church's cemetery to only hold practitioners of the faith.

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    1. Absolutely! And let's pray their god follows in kind for eternity...

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    2. I recommend you the reading of Antigone, by Sophocles. History for Kids have a very short version, maybe it fits your lack:

      http://www.historyforkids.org/learn/greeks/literature/antigone.htm

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  2. Yeah, these kinds of things make it very easy to "respect" religious beliefs. Because clearly, this is what god intended. NOT!

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  3. Every once in a while, the media report that religious observance is waning in much of the world. Despite (or perhaps because of) being raised by observant parents, I am overjoyed to hear these reports. I consider religion to be one of the most divisive, abusive and destructive forces our world has ever known.

    "But what of the good religion does?" the believers wail. "What of the beautiful things that have been created in the name of religion? The artworks, the cathedrals, etc."

    Religion does nothing. All is done by people. People who were duped, gulled and bullied or forced into creating admittedly wonderful things; but things created solely for the purpose of further enriching and empowering those already glutted by riches and power.

    The history of all religion is the history of a thrusting, relentless search for power, nothing more and nothing less. Power over one's fellow human beings. Religious faith may have started out thousands - perhaps tens of thousands - of years ago as an attempt to understand our place in the universe; but sooner or later it all degenerates into the tawdry, grasping, desperate-to-hang-onto-its-power sham we see today.

    As far as I'm concerned, it can't wane fast enough. I only regret the fact that I won't be around to see it utterly discredited and proven to be the hollow, duplicitous, time-, money- and effort-wasting foolishness that it is.

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    1. Every time I read one of these anti-religious screeds, I am reminded of how awesomely atheistic countries have behaved in the last 100 years.

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    2. Brad, what would be examples of atheistic countries?

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    3. Pretty well compared to most. I

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Importance_of_religion_by_country

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    4. I would offer Stalin's regime, Pol Pot's regime, and Chairman Mao of China. My point isn't that countries with religious citizens aren't culpable of terrible crimes, it is that the lack of Christianity, or even atheism, seems to deter people from power craving and acts of atrocity. In point of fact, Christianities explanation of why these things happen seems to be superior than any other anthropology I've read. Except maybe atheism, which would posit we are only animals anyway.

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    5. So many typos in that...I am ashamed.

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    6. We are not grammar Nazis. We focus on content rather than style. :.)

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    7. This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.

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  4. Typical dutch selution

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  5. I'm sure there was a lot of screeching about "traditional marriage" back then too.... Glad these two told them to buzz off, just as we should do with the people screeching about it now.

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  6. Some examples of Atheistic countries in the last 100 years... China, USSR, Cuba, Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, North Korea.

    I think that 'bigotry' is a bit strong to describe this. Sure, their bodies are separated after death by religious regulations... but not necessarily bigotry.

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    1. "Bigotry is the state of mind of a bigot: someone who, as a result of their prejudices, treats other people with hatred, contempt, and intolerance on the basis of a person's race, gender, sexual orientation, gender identity, national origin, religion, language, socioeconomic status, or other status." (Wikipedia).

      I may be overly sensitive on this subject because my favorite uncle, a Lutheran, married a Catholic girl and had to keep the marriage secret from his father and the rest of the family (or he would have been disinherited). We didn't know about the marriage until he died on a hunting trip and we discovered then that he had a wife and two children whom we had not seen growing up.

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    2. They were led by dictators who saw religion, and well as intellectualism as a barrier to their ends. The citizens were not against religion. Don't be so dishonest. Look at actual countries where the citizens feel the least religious, you'll find the most successful countries in the world at the top of the list.

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  7. How about the hundreds of years BEFORE those, the crusades, the witch hunts, the tortures, the murders, the fact the vatican has enough money to help small, hunger ridden countries and they don't care... You can't compare that. God is not necessary, values and morals are and they are given by common sense, and you don't need the promise of eternal damnation to force you follow common sense, jut empathy.

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