|
Catholic Cemetery Conference:
58th Annual Convention and Exposition
Catholic cemeteries officials plan for disaster response
By Andrew Junker, The Catholic Sun
October 4, 2007
Catholic cemeteries will play a vital role in the aftermath of a national disaster and are planning to meet the ensuing challenges, according to a special report at the Catholic Cemetery Conference’s Annual Convention and Exposition Sept. 22.
“Disasters frequently overwhelm local systems that care for the deceased,” said Mark Lazaroski, president of the conference. “Consequently, the responsibility for immediate response falls on local organizations and communities. Cemeteries are one of those organizations.”
The report from the conference’s Mass Fatality Management Subcouncil outlined the responsibilities of cemetery employees in time of an emergency and updated the conference on its participation in planning sessions with other private sector responders.
“Our common concerns as cemeterians are storage and handling and burial procedures in the event of a tragedy — natural or manmade,” said Msgr. Joseph Rebman, director of cemeteries for the Diocese of Wilmington and a member of the conference’s subcouncil.
Other responsibilities include transportation of the remains, issuing death certificates, respect for religious customs, health of cemetery workers and mental health of the bereaved, he noted.
To meet these goals, the subcouncil has been meeting with the national Healthcare Sector Coordinating Council, a group founded in 2002 by the Department of Homeland Security.
Msgr. Rebman described the coordinating council’s purpose as developing a plan to preserve critical infrastructure and key services during the time of a national emergency.
Fr. Patrick Pollard, director of cemeteries for the Archdiocese of Chicago and a member of the subcouncil, attended the coordinating council’s first meeting in Washington D.C. in October 2006.
“When we appeared at the first meeting, we said we have to deal with death and we have to deal with it with reverence and respect,” Fr. Pollard said.
“We can’t choose a military approach in a time of disaster, where we’re going to simply dig trench graves and place bodies in there for public health,” he said.
In order to perform their duties, the Catholic representatives had to convince the government of their necessary role in time of a catastrophe. Originally, government plans for responding to a pandemic had no allowance for cemetery workers to leave their homes.
“So, there could be 1.9 million deaths — which was what the [Center for Disease Control] said will happen if a pandemic occurs — and there was no way that any of us would be able to leave our homes and come to the cemeteries,” Fr. Pollard said.
“It wasn’t even foreseen as being a vital, working reason to go. Just moving that effort forward has been a great breakthrough for us,” he said.
But perhaps the greatest challenge Catholic cemeteries will undertake is remaining calm and steadfast in the face of great distress, Fr. Pollard said.
“We have to be ready to deal with the fear of our own employees, fearful to leave their homes and their families to come to work,” he said. “We have to be able to allay their fears of the infectiousness of disease. We have to be knowledgeable ourselves.”
The subcouncil promised to continue planning and report information to the conference in the future, but also encouraged individual directors of cemeteries to dialogue with local government agencies over contingency plans.
“The way victims are treated has profound and long-lasting effects on the mental health of survivors and communities,” Lazaroski said.
“The Catholic Cemetery Conference has taken proactive steps toward promoting better treatment of the dead,” he said. “We recognize the vital role of the cemeteries in the exceptionally difficult task of coordinating and managing human remains.”
|
