NEW KIND OF INSULATION by N. Y. Christian Advocate

Pacific Press Publishing Company · Oakland, California · Sep 17, 1894

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 20, No. 45.

NEW KIND OF INSULATION.

By N. Y. Christian Advocate

Two weeks ago last Sunday a citizen of Stapleton, S. I., was thrown from his buggy, inflicting injuries which resulted in his death. His wife was a communicant of the Church of the Immaculate Conception of Stapleton; he was a Protestant. She applied to the Roman Catholic pastor for permission to bury her husband in St. Mary's Cemetery. He felt compelled to deny the request. She then applied to another priest in a neighboring town, and at the same time wrote to Archbishop Corrigan. The archbishop being absent from the city, the second priest appealed to used his influence with Mgr. Farley, and at eleven o'clock on Tuesday the monseignor and the two priests above referred to met and had a conference, with this, to the public, probably astonishing result: The desired permission was granted "on condition that the grave be lined and bottomed with brick." The local priest told the undertaker, the undertaker told the widow, the widow agreed to have the grave lined. The undertaker arranged for the construction of the brickwork, and the unconsecrated man was buried in unconsecrated brick in consecrated ground.

We know that glass is an insulator against electricity, but learn now that, according to Roman Catholicism, bricks will insulate a cemetery from heresy. We have compared several accounts of this transaction, and are in a state of surprise as to why the grave did not have to be roofed with brick.

Such are the consequences of surrendering reason to Rome. It may be presumptuous for us to make a suggestion, but why did not they simply perform the act of deconsecrating so many square feet of earth and then line, bottom, and roof the grave with brick? This would have made it impossible for the presence of a heretic's body to do any harm.

—N. Y. Christian Advocate, Aug. 30, 1894.