Post by pim on Oct 26, 2016 11:17:41 GMT 10
I carry no brief for religious bureaucracies and I agree that people will treat the remains of deceased family members as they see fit - within the constraints of the law. For example Zoroastrians in Australia might find a problem with local council ordinances and State law if they followed traditional Zoroastrian practice of exposing their dead to be eaten by vultures.
In the Netherlands half the population, the half that lives south of the Rhine, is Catholic and yet Dutch burial practice is increasingly determined by the constraints of space. Makes sense with 17 million people living in an area half the size of Tasmania. A grave can be kept for no more than 10 years after which the family of the deceased has to pay if they want it to remain dedicated to the dead family member. Otherwise it's declared a vacant plot and re-used. I've also heard that they're talking about upright burials which would go right against the traditional Christian practice of burying the dead facing east. This is not anti-religion. NL is a very crowded little country and space is at a premium. Maybe you can be buried upright but still facing east so it doesn’t have to be incompatible.
Anyway I agreed with you right up to the point where you dismissed the Vatican as "increasingly irrelevant". Personally I regard the Vatican as a grotesque baroque hangover from the days of absolute monarchy. It's a fragment of the old Papal States that had to be done away with before Italy could achieve nationhood. It still had enough clout that the Fascist regime of Mussolini back in the 1920s signed the Lateran Treaty determining its borders and establishing its status as a nation with which other nations - including Australia by the way - could have diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. And that Lateran Treaty is still the instrument under international law by which the Vatican exists as a diplomatic entity.
Irrelevant? You wish! Hell, I wish! But wishing doesn't make it so. Back in the 1930s Stalin dismissed the Vatican with a scornful "How many divisions (of troops) does the Pope have?" Fast forward to the 1990s, the collapse of not just the Soviet Union but also the Soviet empire and the role played by Pope JP2 in that collapse. The answer to Stalin's sneer was "He doesn't need any!"
Here's a list of Australian ambassadors to the Holy See. Whitlam appointed the first one in 1973. For a while they were an add-on so that the Holy See was one of a clutch of countries an Australian ambassador could be accredited to. But if you look at the list you'll see the post has been steadily upgraded. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambassadors_of_Australia_to_the_Holy_See
Irrelevant? Maybe you should write a letter to Julie Bishop and let her know what you think. Good luck with that!
In the Netherlands half the population, the half that lives south of the Rhine, is Catholic and yet Dutch burial practice is increasingly determined by the constraints of space. Makes sense with 17 million people living in an area half the size of Tasmania. A grave can be kept for no more than 10 years after which the family of the deceased has to pay if they want it to remain dedicated to the dead family member. Otherwise it's declared a vacant plot and re-used. I've also heard that they're talking about upright burials which would go right against the traditional Christian practice of burying the dead facing east. This is not anti-religion. NL is a very crowded little country and space is at a premium. Maybe you can be buried upright but still facing east so it doesn’t have to be incompatible.
Anyway I agreed with you right up to the point where you dismissed the Vatican as "increasingly irrelevant". Personally I regard the Vatican as a grotesque baroque hangover from the days of absolute monarchy. It's a fragment of the old Papal States that had to be done away with before Italy could achieve nationhood. It still had enough clout that the Fascist regime of Mussolini back in the 1920s signed the Lateran Treaty determining its borders and establishing its status as a nation with which other nations - including Australia by the way - could have diplomatic relations at ambassadorial level. And that Lateran Treaty is still the instrument under international law by which the Vatican exists as a diplomatic entity.
Irrelevant? You wish! Hell, I wish! But wishing doesn't make it so. Back in the 1930s Stalin dismissed the Vatican with a scornful "How many divisions (of troops) does the Pope have?" Fast forward to the 1990s, the collapse of not just the Soviet Union but also the Soviet empire and the role played by Pope JP2 in that collapse. The answer to Stalin's sneer was "He doesn't need any!"
Here's a list of Australian ambassadors to the Holy See. Whitlam appointed the first one in 1973. For a while they were an add-on so that the Holy See was one of a clutch of countries an Australian ambassador could be accredited to. But if you look at the list you'll see the post has been steadily upgraded. en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_ambassadors_of_Australia_to_the_Holy_See
Irrelevant? Maybe you should write a letter to Julie Bishop and let her know what you think. Good luck with that!