First it was the news that Erich Priebke, a convicted Nazi war criminal had died at the age of 100. Then we were told that neither the Italian government nor the Roman Catholic church would allow a public funeral for Priebke because of his crimes and his lack of acknowledgement and repentance for these heinous acts. The Toronto Star fills us in on the story:
Priebke spent nearly 50 years as a fugitive before being extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1995 to stand trial for the 1944 massacre at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome, in which 335 civilians were killed. He died Friday at age 100 in the Rome home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini, where he had been serving his life term under house arrest.
Priebke spent nearly 50 years as a fugitive before being extradited to Italy from Argentina in 1995 to stand trial for the 1944 massacre at the Ardeatine Caves outside Rome, in which 335 civilians were killed. He died Friday at age 100 in the Rome home of his lawyer, Paolo Giachini, where he had been serving his life term under house arrest.
His death has raised a torrent of emotions over how best to lay to rest someone who perpetrated war crimes and denied the Holocaust. It has tested the church’s capacity for mercy and forgiveness and its need to prevent public scandal.
I understand that the church is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. There is canon law prohibiting burial of unrepentant sinners. How would it appear if a Roman Catholic priest presided at the funeral of a war criminal? But is Priebke damned as well?
And how do we decide who receives a Christian burial? When I began my ministry in Newfoundland decades ago a baby died immediately after birth and before baptism. Was I willing to preside at an interment inside the cemetery? To my shock there were graves outside the fences of the various cemeteries for those who were deemed unacceptable for regular burial. I let people know that no one should be buried outside the cemetery boundaries.
Not long ago we heard of the controversy over finding a burial place for the Boston bomber who was killed in a shoot-out with police not long after his cowardly crime. Eventually a Muslim cemetery was found as his resting place, in part because of an interfaith initiative which included Christians to give him a decent burial, despite his indecency.
What do you think? Are their sins too great to warrant Christian burial? Why would Priebke want a Christian service anyway?
I understand that the church is damned if it does and damned if it doesn't. There is canon law prohibiting burial of unrepentant sinners. How would it appear if a Roman Catholic priest presided at the funeral of a war criminal? But is Priebke damned as well?
And how do we decide who receives a Christian burial? When I began my ministry in Newfoundland decades ago a baby died immediately after birth and before baptism. Was I willing to preside at an interment inside the cemetery? To my shock there were graves outside the fences of the various cemeteries for those who were deemed unacceptable for regular burial. I let people know that no one should be buried outside the cemetery boundaries.
Not long ago we heard of the controversy over finding a burial place for the Boston bomber who was killed in a shoot-out with police not long after his cowardly crime. Eventually a Muslim cemetery was found as his resting place, in part because of an interfaith initiative which included Christians to give him a decent burial, despite his indecency.
What do you think? Are their sins too great to warrant Christian burial? Why would Priebke want a Christian service anyway?
None of us knows if he repented in his last hours, or previously (and would anyone have believed it was genuine?) I can't imagine living under house arrest could be very pleasant.
ReplyDeleteI recall the parable of Jesus that tells of the hired labourers being paid the same wages, whether they worked all day or only an hour at the end of the day ... it is the prerogative of the master to pay the wages ...
So, did he want a Christian Burial?????
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