what does it mean to respect the dead?

What does it mean to respect a dead body? Is it respectful to leave a corpse on a mountain top, for vultures and other scavengers to eat? Is it respectful to allow the body to decompose naturally, then retrieve the bones to place in ossuaries? To fill a body with chemicals that will encourage mold and bacteria to form on the skin, yet prevent decomposition? To cremate? Bury at sea? Carve jewelry or make bowls from skullcaps? Bury in an L-shaped grave in a simple shroud, reusing the grave over and over again? Leave displayed in glass coffins for centuries? Have the body cut into bits and pieces, distributed to new houses of worship around the world? Turn into jewels, or part of a marine reef rebuilding platform? To be left on the ground, eaten by bugs, and then examined by students?

It's a list that could go on, and it could be that you find one or more practices listed  as disrespectful to the dead - but they are all within the funerary practices of one or more religions/cultures in our world. And as a matter of fact, some of the more eyebrow raising methods of dealing with dead bodies belong to the Catholic Church. Part of this is simply a matter of length of existence, and part of it is a reflection of the beliefs of the religion. The bodies of those who are considered special, holy in some way, are often retained for display, or for parceling into relics to be housed at various churches and cathedrals around the world. Surely a body, slightly waxy and preserved through an abnormal adipose reaction, displayed in a glass coffin, is going to appear disrespectful to someone whose religion believes that a dead body should be wrapped in a simple shroud, buried in the ground and allowed to decay, with limited or no headstones marking the surface of the grave or who is in it (and with the grave being reused once that body as decayed to dirt).

So it was with some surprise that I read the Cincinnati Archbishop has canceled field trips to see the "Bodies ...the Exhibition" on the grounds that the exhibit fails to respect the human bodies involved in the display. The Rev. Mike Seger, with whom the Archbishop consulted in this decision, has said

we object to the misuse of the body in a way that doesn't respect what the body may have been. These are people who were once alive, had relationships, suffered, bore children.

To treat the human body - any body - like 'stuff' is morally offensive and grisly. It reminds me of a carnival show 100 years ago.

Now, as a confession, I have not seen "Bodies ...The Exhibition", but I have seen Von Hagens "Bodyworlds", and I loved every minute of the display. The bodies were fascinating, and to see inside, to see such an intimate detail and display of that which is normally hidden to all but surgeons, was an almost miraculous sight. The exhibit itself was full of quotes by famous philosophers questioning the meaning of the body and life itself (so naturally, I was charmed), and perhaps best of all? Being able to hold segments of a plastinated body, including thinly sliced plates of a torso. It was an awesome exhibit, in the true sense of the word - it created a sense of wonder, a sense of awe.

That said, "Bodies ...The Exhibition" has been under heavier criticism from the scientific and general community, for the fact that their bodies come almost exclusively from a single large hospital in China, and they are unclaimed bodies that the hospital receives compensation for releasing. Because of human rights violations in China, there is a valid fear that the bodies being released for plastination are not, in fact, unidentified bodies, but the bodies of criminals or the mentally ill who have been killed/allowed to die and then not returned to their families.

And if that were the basis for which the Archdiocese was making its recommendation from, that there were questions about the origins of the cadavers being used that could not be answered to the satisfaction of the Church, and as such they did not feel they could sanction what could in fact be an activity most of the world would condemn, I wouldn't think twice of it. But the very content of the statement that they are making can be broken down to show not only their disapproval of the exhibit, but can also be read to indicate that the way they, the Catholic Church, treats the dead, is always a way everyone would agree is respectful.

For a Church that has cathedrals built of bones, catacombs lined with monks bones and bodies, that dismembers bodies to create relics, that venerates parts of people dead for centuries, that displays dead bodies in glass coffins - this is a bold declaration to be making.

-Kelly Hills

 

Comments

[R.S.]

Kelly,

"For a Church that has cathedrals built of bones, catacombs lined with monks bones and bodies, that dismembers bodies to create relics, that venerates parts of people dead for centuries, that displays dead bodies in glass coffins - this is a bold declaration to be making."

I don't agree. I think the Church's position is fairly consistent w/ regard to its attitudes about deceased bodies.

Unlike "Bodies . . . The Exhibition", all of the apparently self-contradictory practices by the Catholic Church you cite are of human bodies or parts of bodies that are integrated into sacred contexts and, to the Catholic worshipper, are used specifically to venerate and remember the dead and, ultimately, to glorify God.

The museum exhibit does neither of these, and so the dissembling and disintegration enacted on the particular bodies in the exhibit would not, from a Catholic theological perspective, serve a legitimate end.

Regardless of its mission as an educational institution, one of the museum's primary motives in hosting the exhibit is to attract visitors in order to make money. The archbishop also probably finds this latter fact unseemly and in poor taste in the context of his belief system.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

Kelly,

The substance of the Archbishop's objection was that these plasticized bodies were "unclaimed, unreverenced, and unidentified." Agree or disagree, this is not an unreasonable objection to make. And in fact he stated that while the students would not be visiting under the auspices of the Church, parents were free to choose whether or not they saw this as a fit educational endeavor for their children: "If parents, as the primary educators of their children, believe that it has educational value, they should be the ones to take their children to see it.”

I simply cannot understand why or how you believe the statement can be interpreted to "read to indicate that the way they, the Catholic Church, treats the dead, is always a way everyone would agree is respectful." I can't see how one can read this into the Archbishop's statement. There is nothing remotely close to such a claim here.

[Kelly Hills]

Patrick -
And I said that, if that is what the Archbishop had based his decision on, then it wouldn't have really stood out. Lots of people object to "Bodies..." for that reason (and are fine with Von Hagen's exhibit, because there are less questions about the origin of the bodies). But, they also clearly stated that (and I will quote again),
To treat the human body - any body - like 'stuff' is morally offensive and grisly. It reminds me of a carnival show 100 years ago..

While the Catholic Church sees the way they treat dead bodies, such as the ones in the ossuaries, as sacred and within specific practices of worhsip, that doesn't mean everyone does, and there's no monopoly on what is, in fact, respectful for the dead. To separate out a way in which one group uses dead bodies for education, edutainment, respect, or however you want to frame it, is to create an implicit suggestion. It's like when someone says "Does Pete like Nick" and another replies, "Well, Nick believes Pete likes him..." - the unsaid implication is that in fact, Pete does not like Nick. It's a similar linguistic construct - did they actually, consciously mean it? Perhaps not - but it's a noticable way of speaking.

If the objection, as RS speculates, is in making profit off the exhibit, then perhaps they should not charge for access or viewing to any of their religious exhibits/cathedrals/etc (which they do, at least in some areas).

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

There is nothing whatsoever that allows one to infer that the Archbishop did not base his decision on the reasons given (having to do with the fact that the bodies were 'unclaimed, unreverenced,' etc.): we cannot look into the heart and mind of the Archbishop and discern his "true" (unconscious, latent, what have you) motivations over and above those made manifest in the statement, to claim otherwise is to make a mockery of basic human communication and to claim for oneself powers that are more-than-human. You may believe the Church has less than honest motivations or darker reasons for its conduct, but the statement as such does not license such an imputation. I repeat, there is absolutely nothing in the statement that allows one to draw the inference or make the implication that "that the way they, the Catholic Church, treats the dead, is always a way everyone would agree is respectful." Read the statement again, there's nothing there that denies Muslims or Hindus or Buddhists, for example, may have an equal claim and different way of acknowledging respect for dead bodies. And the Church is all-too-aware that others don't see things the way they do, that others might not agree with how they have chosen to define and demonstrate respect for dead bodies, hence their need to make the public statement and take the action they did with their young charges, and hence their understanding that parents of these childeren may see things differently and may indeed decide to take their children to the museum exhibit. While the Church may indeed wish others saw things as it does, there is a clear recognition on its part that others in fact do not. Your example by analogy is not at all apropos of the actual statement from the Archbishop. *You* are reading into it some less-than-conscious implication or suggestion, no doubt arising out of your own understanding and perception of the Church, but the statement itself does not have the linguistic implications you impute to it, plain and simple.

[Patrick S. O'Donnell]

I should have mentioned that your italicized quote was from Rev. Mike Seger, holder of the James J. Gardner family chair of moral theology at the Athenaeum of Ohio, home of Mount St. Mary's Seminary in Mount Washington. While the Archbishop *consulted* Rev. Seger, the comment from the latter was not in the official press release from the Archbishop. In any case, I think individuals of differing worldviews could (and their practices would suggest they in fact do) agree that to treat the human body as mere "stuff" is morally if not spiritually offensive.

[Sarah]

Is this respecting the dead? Without any moral or ethical leadership, this is the slippery slope ahead....

"'Body Worlds' Entrepreneur to Sell Corpse Cross-Sections"
http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,532934,00.html

[medical questions]

Greta post I agree with alot of what you are saying about respect when it comes to death and the dead and even more with "Is this respecting the dead? Without any moral or ethical leadership, this is the slippery slope ahead...."