The Cemeterian Pope & Dream Resting Places | 4M #188

Welcome to the hundred-and-eighty-eighth edition of Morticians’ Monday Morning Mashup, 4M #188, where we’ll serve up bite-sized, easily-digestible nuggets of the deathcare news you need to crush conversations in the week ahead. Bon appetit!

Deathcare’s pope

You don’t have to be Catholic to be excited about, or at least intrigued by, the election of the first American pope last week. However, here’s one little tidbit about Pope Leo XIV that you might not have heard and that might just make you giddy: While he was a student at Villanova University, Robert Francis “Bob” Prevost was a groundskeeper/maintenance worker at St. Denis Cemetery, a historic Catholic cemetery in Havertown, Pennsylvania! The current pastor of St. Denis Parish, Father Kevin Gallagher, said the would-be pope shared this information last year during a dinner. “It feels special to the people here at St. Denis to know that he was somebody that had to get a summer job,” Gallagher told his local ABC news outlet.

Sparking conversation, but not legislation

Sadly, Indiana will not become the 29th state to legalize alkaline hydrolysis anytime soon. Last week, House Bill 1044, which was initially supported by both Republicans and Democrats, met its demise. It’s the third time AH has been introduced and then shot down in the Hoosier state. The silver lining, however, is that the bill sparked quite a bit of conversation among representatives about disposition options, religious preferences, and the fact that a major manufacturer of AH equipment, Bio-Response Solutions, is headquartered in their state. 

Parking Lot 1 aka Garden of Memories

Countless American cemeteries have been literally buried and long forgotten in the name of progress. Sometimes, though, these properties and the souls they hold are remembered, uncovered, and restored — or at least recognized. That’s what at least one member of the city council in St. Petersburg, Florida hopes will happen with the three cemeteries that have been identified under several parking areas at Tropicana Field, home of the Tampa Bay Rays. For five months, council member Corey Givens prodded his colleagues to review documentation about the proven existence of gravesites under some of the Trop’s lots; last week, they finally agreed to meet and discuss the findings. 

Speaking of Florida …

A new survey by Choice Mutual has revealed the top three Florida cemeteries that residents voted as their “dream resting places.” Key West City Cemetery was the most sought-after, followed by Florida National Cemetery in Bushnell and Huguenot Cemetery in St. Augustine, which is no longer accepting burials. 

Scary protest

Remember back in February when DJ Khaled and another rapper found creepy black coffins propped outside their estates? Last week, a protester adopted a similar tactic against the mayor, wheeling a white casket to the home of Flint, Michigan Mayor Sheldon Neeley. Unlike the rappers’ caskets, which were spray-painted to call attention to ongoing feuds with other artists, the casket at the mayor’s home is not being interpreted as a publicity stunt or joke. The political protester, who lives outside of Michigan, was promptly arrested, with the police chief stating that intimidating and threatening actions like these would not be condoned. Mayor Neeley’s wife, who is a state representative, issued a message calling the protest — which also included verbal threats and profanity directed at the family — an act of terrorism. The protester has vowed to hold another demonstration as soon as he’s released.