Here's something that should make an interesting debate - to move a cemetery, or not move it?

[Rabrrrrrr]

I came across this tonight while searching for something else

The 7th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled this Thursday that Chicago may move the more than 1,600 of the dead buried at St. Johannes Cemetery in Bensenville to take over the land for O'Hare expansion. Lawyers for St. John's UCC, the church that owns the cemetery, argued that relocating the dead would violate religious freedom, but the courts decided that it would not violate any religion to disturb their final resting place.

...

No religious violation? Huh? Christian reverence for the human body is rooted in the belief in the resurrection of the body, which should be preserved until Judgment Day and not be disturbed in the interim.

...

Many Christian religions and Catholic Canon Law have very specific requirements for the final disposition and maintenance of remains, none of which include digging them up to make room for an airport. In other words, the only thing that should be soaring to the skies from that land are the deceased who reside there.

My question is, did the right of those buried at St. Johannes to express their Constitutionally-protected right to religious freedom on their sacred, privately owned land end when they died?

No, my question is about the writer's obvious ignorance in thinking there are many Christian "religions".

But what are we to make of this?

Personally, I think the whole "preserve the body for the final resurrection" idea is scientifically ignorant and biblically false. It has no real basis in scripture. Scientifically, any sane person with a brain should know that, even with a vault and a metal coffin, there is NO FUCKING WAY IN HELL to preserve a body in pristine form for some future bullshit unscriptural "resurrection" of the body.

I mean, Jesus, seriously, fuck and goddamn, do these jackasses even stop to think, "OMG! We've filled the body with embalming fluid so that when we participate in the morbid and ridiculous 'viewing of the body' it looks 'natural'"? No, they don't. Fucking idiots won't cremate a body because they're waiting for some bullshit "resurrection", but they'll fill it with embalming fluid and let it decompose anyway? Assholes.

I also think the whole idea that a burial plot is a person's "final resting place" is nonsensical bullshit - a person's final resting place is heaven. The thing in the burial plot is a soulless collection of raw elements and molecules that used to be a human being, and needs to be put back into the ecosystem. It has no more sacredness than anything else created by God: which is to say, it is of infinite sacredness, but at the same time, no more sacred than anything else.

And in that sense, and in the sense of cemeteries in other countries that routinely dig up old graves, even in Christian cemeteries, to bury newly dead people because of a lack of space, I say - move a cemetery all one wants, because - from a theological standpoint - it has no meaning. Here, there, anywhere, put the decomposing pile of atoms wherever the fuck one wants.

And, speaking personally, I think burying people in this day and age borders on a sin, unless they are buried sans vault and sans any kind of coffin that won't decompose and actually allow the "ashes to ashes, dust to dust" process that God intended.

On the other hand, there's the issue that the people who are buried in that cemetery had an expectation, when they bought the plot, that the plot would actually be theirs in perpetuity. Granted, this was an expectation also scientifically hilarious and biblically unsupportable, but it more than likely was a real expectation. And, as far as possible, I think we have a responsibility to honor that expectation, however childish and laughingly unfaithfully capitalistic we might think it is. The emotional component, however much an intelligent person might disagree with it, is worthy of respect - that is the goal and aim of compassion, empathy, and love, as Jesus taught.

And there is a big part of me that simply hates eminent domain without it being done through a ridiculously and tediously long series of lawsuits and court proceedings and truly stratospheric levels of financial compensation. I think an eminent domain battle should take so long that the original owners of a parcel of land should be able to die peacefully of old age, and the eventual compensation, if the eminent domain wins, goes to their ancestors.

I'm really torn on this on a religious/faith perspective, and a legal/justice perspective. Part of the problem of being able to see so many sides to an issue at one time, I suppose.

Ultimately, though - at least, as of this evening, right now - I come down on the side of the church, and I don't think the city should be able to claim that land for the airport (or for anything). Which makes me question my faith - why am I coming down on the side of the church solely by a purely secular argument, and not a theological one?

I don't know.

And so I offer it up to you all for an interesting (I hope) debate.

Let's see what happens. I look forward to your responses.

[RevCheesehead]

1. While reading this, I can't help it, but...

I thought "please make sure you DO move the bodies, and not the headstones." Poltergeist made me :scared:

[Rabrrrrrr]

2. "They're here..."

:rofl:

[Critters2]

3. As a pastor, I understand the attachment to the place and its history.

Is it rational? Probably not, but that site is sacred to those whose ancestors are buried there. And remembering and protecting such sites humanizes us. There are things more important than "development". We'll learn that too late, I fear.

[Kajsa]

8. I understand the importance too ,Critters.

- and so does my mom, believe it or not.

:)

[rug]

4. I don't know of any religion that requires a corpse to stay put.

Eminent domain allows the taking of private land for a legitimate public use, which fits an airport.

Planes win; cadavers lose.

[supernova]

5. That's a hard one,

I want my ashes spread over the ocean surf, I've always been happiest near the water. But that's just me.

I would think that the city would have to offer an "in kind" gift to the church so they can have a new cemetery. IOW, a similar tract and offer to move the bodies.

Although, I can't understand why, from the city's point of view go after the cemetery? It seems like too much trouble. Is the city that hard up for developable land?

[TreasonousBastard]

6. Well, there's those Jews and Native Americans who...

take this whole burial thing really seriously. May be some others. Dunno many Christians who care all that much from a religious perspective, though. As you say, they used to dig up the bones and throw them in the back to make room for new bodies in the little consecrated ground they used to have. Farmland was far more important, and profitable, than graveyards. Besides, the predominant Christian view is once the soul takes off to wherever it ends up, the body is pretty well useless. I'm not sure just when the Church got into this whole burial thing, but i wouldn't be surprised if it's simply something left over from ancient Jewish and Roman customs.

I can see a church fighting this because some people just get all het up when their ancestors' bones are moved around like that. Even had lotsa legal fights over disinterments when crimes were being investigated. That's not religious, though-- that's just people getting all het up about stuff.

There's an old Jewish graveyard in Greenwich Village that's untouchable, and another one in Prague that I saw. Right smack in the middle of two of the hottest real estate markets in the world they just gotta stop even thinking about developing those tiny plots. I've seen graveyards as hazards in the middle of fairways in Scotland and as downtown parks in Germany. Come to think of it, St. Paul's in the Wall Street area was offering jazz lunches in its graveyard-- sandwich and a soda was three bucks or so back then, and the music from a trio was included.

We also had construction stopped around Newark airport and downtown Manhattan because they found bodies. Seems they were old slave graveyards and all hell was raised about "defiling" them. The Newark one was erased off the maps sometime in the 80's, but the Manhattan one was a complete surprise. Racial politics aside, there is a lot to be said about researching those sites and moving the bodies out of respect.

[Kajsa]

7. My mom, 88 years old now, told me

this once and it's always stuck,

" we die to make room for the new people coming to earth"

and

" you better have me cremated! I don't want to be taking up
room on earth. If you don't I'll haunt you!"

:rofl:

I'm grateful for every day I have with her .

:)