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.

Archaeologists May Have Found Jolly Old St. Nick’s Final Resting Place — and It’s Not at the North Pole

Let’s start out with an admission: Yes, of course we know Santa Claus is real. He wears a red suit and visits all the good boys and girls (not you naughty ones) once a year. He has a slew of small helpers and a stall of dope reindeer at his home on the North Pole, and duh, he’s immortal and very much alive and well. Don’t let anyone tell you otherwise.

However, there was a devoted Christian bishop named Nicholas who lived in the 4th century and became well known for his kindness and generosity, especially toward children and the needy. His good deeds and miraculous works were so notable that after his death, he was granted sainthood by the church; in fact, he was named the patron saint of all sorts of entities, including the countries of Russia and Greece; of charitable fraternities and guilds; and of children, sailors, unmarried girls, merchants, and pawnbrokers.

Sadly, most folks eventually forgot about old St. Nicholas … but not the Dutch. The legend of the kindly Sinterklaas (the Dutch variant of his name) persisted in Holland, and as Dutch colonists settled in America and shared their Sinterklaas stories, the legend of “Santa Claus” — a joyful, generous gift-giver — was born. 

The original St. Nicholas was buried in 343 A.D. in his hometown of Myra, in what is now Turkey. In the 5th century, a grand church was erected in his name around his sacred resting place. It is said that in 1087 A.D. a group of Italian sailors stole at least some of the remains of St. Nicholas from this church, brought them back to their hometown of Bari, and reburied them. Eventually, a shrine to the saint, the Basilica di San Nicola, was developed at the spot. Over the years, though, portions of the remains buried there have been disinterred and small pieces shared throughout the world as relics of St. Nicholas. These include parts that were transported to Venice during the First Crusade.

In 1953, the Pope supervised the opening of St. Nicholas’ Bari tomb during renovations of the basilica, and scientists removed the remaining bones from the tomb for study. After taking extensive measurements, notes, and photographs, the remains were reinterred in a new and improved crypt. Using the data on the skull which was collected in 1953, anthropologists used 3D technology to create perhaps the most authentic representation of what St. Nicholas looked like when he died in his 70s. Believe it or not (and don’t we all want to believe?!), the resulting image is strikingly similar to the famously rosy-cheeked face of Santa Claus!

But here’s the big news: Since 1989, Turkish archaeologists have been excavating within the walls of the Church of St. Nicholas in Turkey. Just last week, news broke that those archaeologists had unearthed a limestone sarcophagus that they believe contains the remains of none other than St. Nicholas himself … or at least what might be left of him after the Italian thieves desecrated his grave.

The five-foot deep and six-foot-long coffin with a raised, pointed lid was buried six feet under the ground in an annex of the church, and is still being meticulously unearthed by the Turkish team. They hope to find an inscription somewhere on the burial chamber that proves their theory that this is the real resting place of the venerated saint.