Rest in Peace
Laderman, Gary & Cort, John C.
LAST WRONGS THE INAUGURAL SARAH SMITH CONFERENCE ON MORAL LEADERSHIP: Caring for the Dead Your Final Act of Love Lisa Carlson Rest in Peace A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home...
...Since 1963 the church, some-what reluctantly, has permitted cremation, and the percentage of those who choose it is rising every year...
...you find an undertaker who has reason-able impulses...
...For that you must look to Gary Laderman's Rest in Peace...
...and politics Theikeynote ;peckers are UarOnOSS Onora O'Neill, Principal of Newnham - Callege of the Universrt/ of Cambridge I.EnSIRnd...
...she did it...
...4. The driver will deliver the casket to the cemetery...
...The question then remains: How do Cooking with Grease Slit] ine the Pots in :1merican Politics Donna hrrrrilc Don Wyeliff ome people grow up wanting to be firemen...
...OR CALL 50C-C'.i°-Bfl25...
...Later, describing the success of the powerful funeral directors' lobby in persuading the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to abandon its earlier restrictions—what Mitford and Carlson describe as a shameful "capitulation"—Laderman notes with satisfaction: "Federal efforts to regulate the cost of funerals...did accomplish one thing: the dead remained firmly under the control of America's modern death specialists...
...Our local funeral directors charge anywhere from $195 to $29,000...
...She cites a Vermont survey by Carlson that included this staggering fact a Swan-ton woman complained because her mother's funeral in 1993 cost $2,900 and when her father died in 1995 the identical funeral cost $7,100...
...2. You instruct the undertaker to de-liver the body in the casket to the church of your choice, where six able-bodied men or women—relatives or friends—will carry the casket into the church...
...Why are these big fellows moving in on the little fellows...
...Is there an alternative to the cur-rent system, one that is less expensive yet still in keeping with church teaching...
...On the one side is generally a person greatly agitated or overwhelmed by vain regrets or deep sorrow and on the other side persons whose business is to minister to the dead for prof-it...
...In the top range, $7,020 to $9,910, were seven funeral homes owned by SCI, the giant conglomerate...
...YALE.ERU EAITH...
...This avoids any need for embalming, which, contrary to popular opinion, is not required by law...
...He found sixteen mortuaries that would provide a complete funeral, with metal casket, for $1,450 to $2,500...
...F' FOR F.RITN .f ern TUBE V/ES ITE WWW...
...Mostly because they C R I S I. O F TRUST TRUST IN A CULTURE OF SUSPICION AND SPIN S E P T E M B E R 7ao04 a t YALE DIVINITY SCHOOL iN NEW HAVEN CT The i s,,i to _-ir:a irilh ,n evening rose .0 , Good leaders strive tope trustworthy and tO create institutional ctiitures and structures that foster trust ammtg their stakeholders...
...Plots can be expensive, and you may be required to purchase an outer burial container, an additional expense...
...F 6 KEEP OFF Other speakers and workshop leaders to he announced FOR MORC INFORMATION VISIT THC TALE CF NT...
...And, if you want to help others beside yourself, join your local society/alliance...
...Some of them look like cardboard, or they are covered with a discouraging shade of gray flannel cloth...
...It also features some interesting stories of families who chose to have nontraditional funerals...
...ow let us consider the comparative advantages of a vigil in the church...
...isr} t Y © ROSS / ROTHCO ' Sf i Certrcr se- I- an h alto-re Commonweal 3 I August 13, 2004 have discovered that funerals can be very profitable...
...How firm that control became, and how profitable, as a result of FTC's capitulation, is explored in Mitford's classic...
...Laderman has provided an all-out defense, and even exaltation, of your local undertaker, making a distinction between the latter and the "greedy" and "predatory" corporations that have been taking over the local enterprises...
...An undertaker with reasonable impulses can probably provide you with an acceptable casket for something under $1,000, or under $500 if you don't care much about appearance...
...Donna Brazile is the only person I've ever heard of who grew up wanting to be the campaign manager for a presidential candidate...
...To find your local branch, contact the FCA headquarters (www.funerals.org or phone 800-765-0107...
...The funeral industry has tried mightily to make this "one final view" an absolute essential for the psychological and spiritual welfare of the nearest and dearest...
...Father Henry Wasielewski of Phoenix, Arizona, is a veritable dynamo of reform...
...They still declare that George W. Bush "isn't my president" and vow they'll run him out of the White House in November...
...I have checked with local funeral homes and found that the charge for these services ranges from $955 without embalming ($1,315 with minimal embalming) to $3,195 ($3,790 with embalming...
...There is, or need be, no embalming, no open casket, no viewing...
...But consider what it makes possible: the wake with the open casket, the friends and relatives approaching for one final view of the loved one...
...Cemeteries, whether owned by towns, churches, or profit-hungry corporations, are a problem...
...American funeral directors...not only became the primary managers in the disposal of the dead, they also began to determine the interpretive and ritual framework available to many Americans facing the loss of a loved one," Laderman writes...
...and Jargon Moltrnann, emeritus professor of systematic theology on the Protestant faculty of the University of Tubingen iGerrnanyj...
...Bitter though the defeat was, Brazile has chosen not to get mad, but to get even...
...One, there is the pressure of time, of concern about decomposition of the body plus concern, usually, about arrangements for a funeral within a limited period...
...John C. Cort is author of, most recently, Dreadful Conversions: The Making of a Catholic Socialist (Fordham University Press...
...This is most important because it is in the purchase of caskets, dear reader, that you find the major source of prof-it to the undertaker and financial loss to those less affluent families who cannot afford a casket that does not look cheap...
...It is a peculiarly North American novelty...
...One of the best-known books about the American funeral business was writ-ten by a Brit...
...He bars mortuary personnel from the church, asserting, "There is no need for delivery men...not members of the family or the parish, to insert themselves into our sacred liturgy and procession when they are not needed and are not requested to do so by the priest...
...Two, there is the powerful factor of shame, guilt, and the fear that the selection of a casket at a reasonable price will seem cheap...
...About twelve years ago my wife Helen and I purchased two beautiful pine coffins, with rope handles, for $400 apiece from James Casey in Newport, Rhode Island (401-847-5573...
...Up to now I have proceeded on the assumption that you, like the Catholic Church and about 75 percent of the American people, prefer the traditional burial of the deceased in a casket rather than cremation...
...The body is left in the church overnight and the traditional wake held after the vigil in the church hall or an adjoining room...
...Casey now makes them from cherry and the price is $785 plus delivery (about $1 per mile...
...She persuaded the Democratic National Committee to create—and she now directs—a Voting Rights Institute, BREAKING BARRIERS Commonweal 3 3 August 13, 2004...
...The cremated remains may also be present at a funeral ceremony in church and buried in a cemetery, of course...
...This lntorrlisciplinaIi' conference will draw an a wide variety of fieldsineluding theology, philosophy, business...
...Does the modem funeral truly embody the religious values that the church insists should characterize it...
...No one has stated the reason for this fact with greater clarity and authority than former Surrogate Court Judge Fowler of New York: One of the practical difficulties in such proceedings is that contracts are ordinarily made by persons differently situated...
...One recommended procedure: 1. You ask the undertaker to pick up the body at the hospital or the home and refrigerate it...
...Hospitals and some funeral homes have refrigerating facilities...
...They include Service Corporation International (SCI), which by 1995 owned more than fifteen hundred funeral homes and "close to 250 cemeteries...
...OR EMAIL YCF0INFO"YALE.EOU "Our lawn was his li ~h...
...Nota bene: These prices are at least five years old and have most likely increased...
...Not only did she want it...
...And "the industry" has taken pains to make its cheap caskets look cheap...
...Pre-need planning is a must, but the consensus is to avoid preneed contracts, which tend to enrich the funeral director and rarely protect the consumer from the escalation of prices...
...LAST WRONGS THE INAUGURAL SARAH SMITH CONFERENCE ON MORAL LEADERSHIP: Caring for the Dead Your Final Act of Love Lisa Carlson Rest in Peace A Cultural History of Death and the Funeral Home in Twentieth-Century America Gary Laderman I John C. Cort unerals have become so costly that many families must either go into debt to finance one or resort to cremation when they would really prefer an old-fashioned casket...
...This would not have been enough,however, but for the arrival in our parish of a new pastor, Father Terrence Curley, author of books on the subject of grieving and former president of the board of trustees of the National Catholic Ministry to the Bereaved...
...Not surprisingly, Carlson does not have many kind words for the funeral industry...
...Cur-ley informed us that the church's Order of Christian Funerals encourages and provides a liturgy for the°holding of a vigil in the church on the evening be-fore the funeral...
...For the same services and products the rest charged from $3,000 to $9,910...
...Her book includes information on organ donation, embalming, cremation, and a helpful list of the death-related laws in each state...
...These coffins also make excellent blanket boxes and/or window seats...
...Some want to be doctors, or astronauts, or lawyers, or journalists, or even president of the United States...
...And not only did she do it, but in the minds and hearts of many, she did it victoriously...
...Suggestion: talk to your local "memorial society," which may well have changed its name to the Funeral Consumers Alliance...
...One side is therefore often unbusinesslike, vague, and forgetful, while the other is ordinarily alert, knowing, and careful...
...This will occur perhaps a half-hour be-fore the vigil so that very few people will have any chance to see whether the casket looks cheap or expensive...
...3. After the funeral, the casket will be wheeled from the sanctuary to the front of the church, where the priest will conclude the funeral rite, the pall will be re-moved, and the casket will be placed in the hearse...
...Trust is central to the functioning at all spheres 'pi Me...
...Wasielewski made an exhaustive survey of 120 funeral homes in the Houston, Texas, area...
...More in-formation is available from the FCA...
...It lost the Electoral College vote—and thus the presidency—by virtue of a 5-4 vote of the U.S...
...Her books exposed the excesses of the funeral industry, though they did little to curb them...
...Laderman unwittingly provides an indictment of those he wants to defend that is arguably more damaging than anything in Mitford's books, because it reveals the successful historical campaign to wrest control of funerals away from families and churches and center them in the funeral home and the funeral director...
...Organ donation is a consideration for many people...
...and author of A Question of Trust...
...Actually, Fowler neglected to mention several other factors that put the consumer at a disadvantage...
...A great many Americans have never made peace with that result...
...Jessica Mitford reminds us that over the centuries, over most of the world, embalming has been virtually unknown, except for Egyptian pharoahs and European royalty...
...he "dominant role" and T "firm control" of funeral di-rectors did not go unchallenged by the clergy...
...There are many weird statements in Laderman 's book, but none weirder than this one: "Most [funeral directors] agreed on one central point that inspired [their] mythic imagination: embalming is the bedrock of the industry, and secures America's place as the greatest nation on earth...
...There is no disputing that Brazile's Democratic ticket of Al Gore and Joe Lieberman won the popular vote in 2000...
...A wake puts the casket right up there at the center of attention...
...A number of books have been published that deal with these questions...
...Jessica Mitford riddled the industry with wit and hard-hitting facts in books that she kept revising: The American Way of Death, 1963 (revised in 1978), and The American Way of Death Revisited, 1998...
...Carlson quotes an article in the January 1998, issue of Mortuary Management, an industry publication: From consumer surveys it is clear that families select caskets mainly on eye appeal....That is the reaCommonweal 32 August 13, 2004 son that casket companies produce inexpensive caskets in rather unflattering finishes...
...Perhaps it was the very weirdness, the very craziness of that statement, that got me started in the direction of a possible solution to the problem of reducing (a) the financial cost of funerals and (b) the spiritual cost that churches and bereaved families have suffered from this campaign to highjack the funeral experience and place it under the "film control of the funeral directors...
...It reveals the cheap casket in all its cheapness and en-graves the fear of being cheap in the minds of all who may be contemplating, when the time comes, the purchase of something at a price they can afford...
...It will be immediately covered by a cloth pall and wheeled up to the sanctuary...
...Cremation reduces the cost of dying, since the casket is a major expense and for cremation a plain rigid container, wood and/or other material, is sufficient...
...This review has barely scratched the surface of a huge subject...
...Better theologians than I have pointed out, without much success, that this fixation on a prettied-up corpse represents the opposite of what a believing Christian is supposed to be thinking and praying about, namely, the welfare of the loved one's soul and one's own resignation to the loss of the loved one's body...
...These figures do not include the cost of the casket...
...In Caring for the Dead, Lisa Carlson, one of Mitford's disciples and founder of the Funeral Ethics Organization, ex-plains how to conduct a funeral "with or without a funeral director...
...Supreme Court, a decision that gave Florida's bent, folded, spindled, and mutilated election to George W. Bush and Dick Cheney...
...If they looked too good, people might buy them [emphasis added...
...Catholic priests, among others, have been vocal in protest...
...Being a hopeless traditionalist, I share the church's reluctance...
Vol. 131 • August 2004 • No. 14
