A Catholic Lament: Catholic Cemeteries

 VOCAL received this email yesterday.  This is one Oregon Catholics opinion and experience.  We are here to give people a voice for their observations that hinder our Faith.  

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You might consider posting the following, especially during November.

Thanks.

A Catholic Lament:

One could do an interesting study as to how many people the former Archdiocesan Superintendent of Catholic Cemeteries, Pat Balfe, fired, as compared with the current Superintendent, Tim Corbett.  You will find that Pat probably never fired anyone, and that Tim has fired many.

Are people now-a-days just incompetent slobs, as compared to people in the not-so-distant past?  No.  A new inhuman and diabolical attitude has arrived.  It is that people are now not considered anything but expendable throw away items.  They have lost their human dignity and value through a new way of thinking which is spread throughout corporations via Human Resources departments.  “HR” departments only seem to care about corporate profits and expansion.  Their only interest in workers is how they might be used to advance the profits and expansions of their given corporations.  They have no concern for the worker as a person.  “Human Resources” in the Portland Archdiocese works in tandem with Tim Corbett to fire, fire, fire.

This dismissive attitude toward workers certainly does not take into account the Christian understanding that a worker (a person) is a creature created in the Love of the infinite God, in His Image and Likeness, and thereby is of an infinite value, and hence cannot be treated as something to be used and discarded at a whim.

Now, let us look again at the former Superintendent of Cemeteries, Pat Balfe.  Pat was a Catholic.  Tim Corbett, the current Superintendent, is not.  There are striking differences between the two.  It is not just a matter of how efficiently a business is run.  There is more to it than that: there is the Catholic perspective, which shows great respect for the living as well as the dead.

One really cannot adequately respond in a cemetery situation, where you have people coming in, in a highly emotional and perhaps vulnerable state who needs someone to talk to about Catholic beliefs and burial practices, and not be a Catholic.  A Catholic is truly necessary for the job.  And yet, and yet…so many non-Catholics are hired for so many positions within the Portland Archdiocese!  This is part of the reason that the Faith is not being adequately transmitted. 

We truly need to hire people who are actual practicing Catholics, who have letters from their parish priests attesting to their good standing in the Church.  Catholics are needed who have a true Catholic heart and a true Catholic way of looking at things; who have a knowledge of the Faith, and a baptismal certificate.

The hiring of actual practicing Catholics in the Catholic Cemetery system is the only way to correct the abysmal situation that Human Resources and the Catholic Cemeteries are in, in the Portland Archdiocese.  This would staunch the flow of cemetery workers being fired from their jobs, and would also restore a Catholic identity and presence in the Catholic cemeteries.