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CNS Story:
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CEMETERY-CRIME (CORRECTED) Jul-29-2009 (610 words) With photos posted July 28. xxxn
Catholic official to help Chicago cemetery recover from scandal
By Michelle Martin
Catholic News Service
CHICAGO (CNS) -- The director of the Chicago Archdiocese's Catholic Cemeteries division has been asked to restore order to an Illinois cemetery where employees were charged in early July with unearthing corpses and reselling empty plots for profit.
Roman Szabelski was appointed by the Circuit Court of Cook County at the request of the sheriff's department to oversee the process of digitizing burial records and putting finances in order at the Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip.
The cemetery, owned by Perpetua Inc., is the Chicago area's first black cemetery and the resting place of Emmett Till, a Chicago boy whose 1955 beating death in Mississippi was a key moment in the civil rights movement.
Szabelski originally estimated that the cemetery, which was closed to the public during an FBI investigation, could reopen as early as Aug. 1, but by July 22 he had decided it would take longer to organize the records. He also wanted to come up with a system to welcome people back to visit their loved ones' graves so the cemetery would not face an influx of thousands of families when it opens its gates.
Szabelski said Cardinal Francis E. George of Chicago was willing to lend him to the project at Burr Oak because the cardinal understands the important role cemeteries play in people's lives.
"In our faith, it's the communion of saints we live with every day," Szabelski told The Catholic New World, Chicago's archdiocesan newspaper. "It's our past and our present. It's our legacy. And sometimes you need a place to go to remember your loved ones."
He has worked for Catholic Cemeteries for 30 years, starting with mowing the grass on his summer breaks from a job as an elementary schoolteacher.
Cemeteries provide insight into a society's values, and those that do not treat their dead with reverence are on their way to falling apart, he said. The scandal at Burr Oak is a reminder of why it is important to take care of cemeteries, he said.
Szabelski pointed out that most of Burr Oak, which has an estimated 100,000 graves, does not appear to have been tampered with. By July l7, only two areas were still considered crime scenes.
Those areas contained evidence that workers had dug up bodies in order to resell the graves, dumping the bodies in a remote area of the property. In other cases, bodies were buried on top of one another in single graves without the knowledge or consent of families. About 300 graves are believed to have been disturbed.
Three former cemetery employees were charged with the crimes.
A representative of the company that owns the cemetery did not come forward until after Szabelski had been appointed receiver.
On July 22, about 50 area religious leaders gathered to reconsecrate the ground at Burr Oak Cemetery at the invitation of the sheriff, who said pastors will be on the front lines in helping families cope with the tragedy of what happened at Burr Oak.
Before the prayer service, the pastors met with Szabelski and then boarded three buses for a tour of the cemetery grounds. They were driven past the parts of the cemetery that are blocked off as crime scenes.
After the tour, the leaders offered prayers in their respective traditions to ask God's blessing upon the cemetery site and for the families who have loved ones buried there.
They also prayed for blessings upon Szabelski and his staff.
"Lord, touch him (Szabelski) in a special way," prayed the Rev. Steve Jones, chaplain for the Cook County Sheriff's Office, "that when the gates swing open there will be answers for the loved ones."
END
Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
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