So you're gonna die. You want your remains composted. Some states say yes. Catholic church says no!

[True Dough]

Washington, Colorado and Oregon are now among the US states that have legalized the process of converting bodies into soil, a procedure the Catholic Church said fails to show 'respect for the body of the deceased.'

The process for composting a body was introduced by the Seattle-based company Recompose, which is now open for business after the state of Washington legalized the process in 2019. Colorado was the second state to legalize it, followed by Oregon, when Gov. Kate Brown in mid-June signed House Bill 2574 into law.

Here’s how it works: A dead body is broken down through a process known as Natural Organic Reduction by placing the body in a reusable vessel, covering it with wood chips and aerating it, which creates an environment for microbes and essential bacteria. The body, over a span of about 30 days, is fully transformed into soil. This process is seen as a more sustainable alternative to cremation, which requires fossil fuels and releases carbon dioxide. Proponents say families can use the soil to plant a tree or a garden to honor their loved ones. In public testimony, the Oregon bill garnered widespread support.

[SNIP]

The New York State Catholic Conference in a statement said composting human remains is inappropriate.

“While not everyone shares the same beliefs with regard to the reverent and respectful treatment of human remains, we believe there are a great many New Yorkers who would be uncomfortable at best with this proposed composting/fertilizing method, which is more appropriate for vegetable trimmings and eggshells than for human bodies,” it said.

https://religionnews.com/2021/07/12/amid-catholic-opposition-states-are-legalizing-composting-of-human-remains/

[True Dough]

1. Best online comment I saw was this one:

"Wait, the same Catholic church that leases cemetery plots for 100 years, and then digs up the bones and tosses them into pits to make room in the cemetery for new burials? The same Catholic church that paves over churchside burials to expand their parking lots? The same Catholic church that makes artistic displays of bones and skulls in their European chapels? The same Catholic church that started in the catacombs and burial tombs of ancient Rome?"


Speaks to the layers of hypocrisy common among church-themed current affairs. Not to mention mass graves of Indigenous children in Canada.

[GoCubsGo]

12. Not just Canada.

They did the same to Native American children, as well. It's just a matter of time before mass graves are discovered here, too. And, what about Mexico, Central America, and South America, where their tentacles reached all over the place?

[IL Dem]

36. Exactly what I was thinking.

https://www.atlasobscura.com/lists/definitive-guide-to-ossuaries-crypts-and-catacombs


https://www.nationalgeographic.com/travel/article/things-to-see-bone-church-sedlec-ossuary


https://www.catacombes.paris.fr/en/history/ossuary

[vercetti2021]

2. Oh can I take this one?

My BODY, my CHOICE.

[Sanity Claws]

3. When giving ashes on Ash Wednesday,

Catholic priests say: “Remember, man, that thou art dust, and unto dust thou shalt return”
Composting burial is simply the Ash Wednesday prayer put into action.
This is how I want to go. I want to know that my remains are contributing to Mother Earth.

[no_hypocrisy]

4. With natural decomposition, you get the same effect. With this method, you're just

speeding it up. Plus, I like the idea of my body turning into usable soil that could grow food to feed the living. That would truly make me immortal.

[EYESORE 9001]

5. The church must have some funeral-related companies in their portfolio

Can’t be affecting the sacred bottom line, can we?

[abqtommy]

6. Correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't this the same church that has no problems burying

indigenous children in unmarked graves? Hypocrites, much?

[MiHale]

7. Place my soil somewhere sunny...

with plenty of water, eventually I’ll grace you with a cannabis plant. Get buzzed with me one more time!

[The Magistrate]

8. A Good Many People Are 'Uncomfortable At Best', Sir

When Catholic clergy open their mouths to prattle on about what other people must do, or be restricted from doing, to lead moral lives.

[bucolic_frolic]

9. What of mercury amalgam? /nt

[Mariana]

18. Good question.

What happens to mercury amalgam when a body is cremated, or embalmed and buried in a casket?

[Piasladic]

32. I say pluck my teeth out and have at it.

I'm not sure how that stuff is regularly handled after someone dies. Probably a mortician would know.

[bucolic_frolic]

35. I believe it's all left in place

No one is plucking toxic materials or gold crowns for that matter.

[Scrivener7]

10. Catholic clergy sure do hate the way God created stuff.

[GoCubsGo]

11. Next Ash Wednesday, they need to think a little harder about what they'e saying

when they put ashes on people's foreheads. You know, that thing about returning to dust. They're not putting the bodies in with kitchen waste, you dolts. I'm so glad I left that kind stupidity decades ago.

[lookyhereyou]

13. IN REVERENCE FOR MOTHER EARTH

I want to give back by way of microbes and fungus to GAIA

I have always wanted to die in the woods and decompose and

or be eaten by creatures great or small and so become one with the

earth mother again and be useful even in death.

this gives me hope ! ... the Catholic church not so much.

[lagomorph777]

17. Me too.

Please don't waste my estate on all the show biz symbolic hoopla.

Dispose of the carcass in a cheap and environmentally friendly way.

I am part of the Earth and want to return to her when I'm done.

[Luciferous]

14. I told my kids to cremate me and put me on a nice beach but I think

this is an even better idea.

[CTyankee]

21. I want to be cremated and my son in law to take them out to the waters around Martha's Vineyard

and catch a current that leads to the Iberian Peninsula. I refer to this as "going to Spain when I die." I add that Portugal, a possibility, has no art and therefore I choose Spain, whose art is incredible beautiful.

Why not?

[Luciferous]

34. Going to Spain... I like it!

[roamer65]

15. Who cares what a bunch of child murderers and molesters thinks?

I certainly don’t.

[lagomorph777]

16. It's much more respectful to jam trochars in, drain all the fluids, and pump in chemicals.

Then paint it up, and prominently display the carcass.

Finally, seal it in a giant concrete vault so it takes centuries to decay into toxic slime.

So dignified.



https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x35g9ib

[berniesandersmittens]

23. Yep

And their sacred blood drained into to sewer.

When I was an Embalmer, the operating table drained into a urinal to be flushed periodically.

Same with the aspiration (using the trochar) .





.

[demigoddess]

25. my preference is bury me (no chemicals to preserve) in the ground and plant a tree on top.

I figure the tree will feed off me and provide oxygen and clean the air.

[lagomorph777]

26. I'd like that very much myself.

[Act_of_Reparation]

19. Aw, shit. Well, we wouldn't want to discomfort anyone.

Sorry, everyone. You don't get to decide what happens to your remains because some people are discomforted by the notion you might do something that has literally no measurable effect on them whatsoever.

[Cinnamonspice]

20. And also, Hindus don't believe in eating cows.

Bring a hamburger to a starving Hindu and see if they don't turn it down.

I am a Catholic and I do admit I don't want to become compost. I want the doctors to take every piece of me they can (organs, skin, bones) and make sure there isn't a lot of me left to burn. Then, put me in a bio-degradable box and bury me somewhere.

or


Ship me off into space. I can piggyback ride off of one of those millionaires. If one of them goes to Mars, just drop me off there.

[Kaleva]

22. It'd be better if we donated our bodies to feed starving polar bears.

The resulting poop will add valuable nutrients to the soil and help the cycle of life.

[Retrograde]

24. Back in the Middle Ages in Europe

it was common for famous or important people to be buried in pieces: Richard the Lionheart's heart ended up in Rouen Cathedral while most of the rest of him went to an abbey in eastern France. The Austro-Hungarian Hapsburgs were buried in 3 pieces in different places in Vienna until the 20th century. When I visited El Escorial near Madrid about 15 years ago, one of the attractions was the bodies of Juan, father of King Juan Carlos, and his wife decomposing in an anteroom to the royal crypt until they were fit to be moved to the main vault. So it's not like the RC has been against unusual treatment of bodies in the past - and I'm not even starting on the various saints' relics on display in various churches.

But then it took them nearly a century to accept cremation in the US.

[Sympthsical]

28. The European history of royal burial is fascinating

"So the entrails are here. The rest of you over there. And hey, just for funsies, what if we put your heart over here?"

I remember my Jesuit college history advisor/professor thought it was hilarious with Richard. "The Lionheart! The Crusader! The epitome of English greatness and courage! . . . Spent half a year in England during his entire reign, and his heart is in France." He thought it was the funniest thing ever. Completely tickled him. And he is right. It is deeply funny how history remembers things.

[Sympthsical]

27. I don't get the difference between that and cremation

I mean, my mother is very, very Catholic. She's going to be cremated and buried above my father in the same grave. I never heard any religious complaints about that.

Wonder what the beef is.

I actually think that's very nice. Plant a tree, and know your loved one is literally inside that tree. That's honestly very beautiful in its way.

[hunter]

29. A few billion years from now when the earth is incinerated by an expanding sun...

... even the most well preserved and fossilized bodies on Earth will be incinerated.

That's why I'm selling burial plots on Pluto.

[True Dough]

31. How much are those plots going for?

Asking for a friend.

[hunter]

33. How much has he got?

[LiberalFighter]

30. Don't they recycle burial spaces in Germany?