The American Way of Death Revisited

Lastly, Bishop Pike emphasized that the proper place for a religious funeral service is in church—and not in the “chapel” of a mortuary. Protestant ministers will officiate at the funerals of non-church members if asked to do so. Most churches make no charge whatsoever; some churches in the East do make a small charge to those who are not contributing members, “but it’s chicken feed compared to the overall cost of the funeral.” The family may want to make a small payment to the verger (“That’s up to them”), and the organist generally makes a charge.

In all of this, there is cold comfort indeed for the funeral director, who is most anxious to put his entire range of goods and services fully at the disposal of the mourners. For, to what avail the art of the embalmer if his handiwork is to be concealed in a closed coffin? Of what use is the “copper casket of SEAMLESS construction, made without joints or seams of any kind,” if its seamlessness and freedom from joints are hidden beneath a funeral pall? What is to become of the “chapel” with its rheostat-controlled lighting, deep-piled wall-to-wall carpeting, cushioned pews, soft, cold color scheme, and Pilcher organ if funeral services are to be conducted in—of all things—a church? And, if the family so desires, with no casket present at all? Lastly, if the minister will be counseling and comforting the bereaved family, what is then left of the funeral director’s “professional” role of grief therapist?

Many of the views expressed by Bishop Pike were echoed by a Jewish religious leader, Rabbi Sidney Akselrad of Temple Beth El in Berkeley, California: “In Jewish practice, simplicity is the rule. There’s no need to go into debt over a funeral. The Jewish tradition emphasizes a very simple coffin.” He spoke with approval of a Jewish custom in pre-Hitler Germany; simple, identical coffins were stored up for rich and poor alike “that there might be no competition in death.” Rabbi Akselrad advised: “Ask the cost; don’t be embarrassed to put the question to them.” But he found that people on the whole do not like to go through this kind of survey.

Although the Jewish faith requires the presence of the coffin during the funeral service, Rabbi Akselrad did not approve of the open-casket ceremony: “I don’t like the display. It’s not very Jewish. I don’t like the parade to view the handiwork of the funeral director, especially after the service, which should attempt in some small way to bridge the gulf between life and death; the viewing of the remains tends to reopen the wound.” However, like Bishop Pike, the rabbi felt that in some cases the immediate family might derive comfort from looking on the face of the dead.

Of slumber-room visiting, he thought this was something of a social experience, where people gather for a reunion—“So glad to see you” said all around—but “sometimes the deceased is overlooked.”

Rabbi Akselrad related one embarrassing experience in which a widow begged him to accompany her to the funeral establishment to help negotiate the price of the funeral. The funeral director quoted one price as the least expensive funeral he offered. The rabbi demurred, saying that he had told the woman she could purchase one for less, upon which the funeral director quickly relented. Since that time, Rabbi Akselrad has been loath to get involved in the financial end of the funeral.

Not so Reverend Laurance Cross, pastor of the Berkeley Community Church. As one who has officiated at more than six thousand funerals, Reverend Cross was a veteran in dealing with undertakers of every kind.

He placed great emphasis on the importance of distinguishing between the fair-minded, ethical undertaker with a conscience and those who use “psychological pressure” to force up the price of a service. “You can’t damn them all,” he said. “It’s not true to portray them as all of a kind.” He told of several in his own community—“decent, sincere people who pursue their work according to the highest ideals.” Many of these would like to see far-reaching changes in the approach and practices of the industry; one almost suffered a nervous breakdown because of the sharp business dealings of his partner. “Unfortunately, though, of the two kinds of undertaker, the expensive kind dominates,” Reverend Cross said.

In relating one of his selection-room skirmishes, he took on aspects of an avenging angel with an Alabama accent—for he hailed originally from that state. The selection-room arrangement described by Reverend Cross had none of the subtleties of the Triangle Plan or the Keystone Approach. “First you come to a magnificent casket—it’s like a pink show window. You’d think it was the Queen’s jewels on display. The inside is made of beautiful satin, and it’s set out on a thick white carpet. You walk along and come to the next one. That’s another beauty, maybe in a different pastel shade. You see a few more, and then you come to the absolute end. There aren’t any more. Those you have seen are priced very high. At this point, most people say, ‘Well, that’s more than I can afford, but he doesn’t have any others—I guess I’ll have to settle for one of these.’ However, if the customer is mean enough to say, ‘I haven’t got that much. We’ll have to take the body elsewhere,’ then the funeral director opens a door you never knew existed.”

Shifting angrily in his chair, Reverend Cross warmed to his theme. “You go into another room where there are maybe half a dozen caskets—in less attractive colors than the other beauties—and at somewhat lower prices. That’s where psychology comes in. The average person who has managed to avoid the more expensive caskets now feels that at least he has saved several hundred dollars. But if you’re as mean as the devil, you may still insist that the caskets you’ve seen are more than you were prepared to pay. So you go through the same procedure. The funeral director opens yet another door you never knew existed, and here are some for even less. If you are so mean that you still won’t spend that much, you are led into the last room. The funeral director pulls down a thing that looks like an ironing board, and shows you an ugly casket, maybe purple in color. The cheap ones are purposely made up in hideous colors, and they have no handles, no lining. If you still won’t buy that, you are taken from there through a concrete alleyway as dark as Egypt. You come to a garage where all the funeral cars are parked. There he pulls out a box. It’s just six pieces of redwood nailed together.”

“How much does he charge for that one?”

“He’ll charge anything he can get out of you for it,” said Reverend Cross, giving that avenging-angel look.

Those in the funeral trade who had looked upon the mild and occasional interventions of the clergy as yet another “menace” have more recently been confronted by a threat of honest-to-God authenticity. It has cropped up in various parts of the country, and has been led, unexpectedly, by Catholic clerics, who have come out foursquare to denounce not the occasional undertaker but the business as a whole.

One such is Father James Connolly, pastor of St. Blaise Church in Bellingham Center, Massachusetts. In a broadside attack on funeral directors published in the National Catholic Reporter (August 1995), Father Connolly called into question the legitimacy of the funeral director’s participation in Catholic funerals.

Defining the Church’s view of the funeral Mass as a celebration of the believing community in which members should be active participants in the rituals of death, he expressed deep concern over the extent to which mortuary personnel seek to supplant the role of the parishioners.

In a statement deplored by Mortuary Management as “bold,” Father Connolly went on to say:

Funeral directors have greater power over the bereaved who put themselves in their hands. It is so sad to see this power turn into manipulation. Attempts to undermine what we are doing, it seems, involve more than the individual funeral director on duty. It seems that Americans have been rendered powerless by the funeral industry. Bright, independent people permit themselves to be moved as if they were mechanical.

They are led to their automobiles, from their automobiles, to the church, down the aisle to their seat and to the open grave as if they wouldn’t otherwise see it.

The parish decided the time had come to take matters in hand. “We announced to them that they would no longer lead the entrance procession at funerals in our church. We meet them at the front door and the community receives the body and returns it after Mass to the funeral directors at the front door,” said Father Connolly. He goes on to describe the shocked and incredulous reaction of the mortuary brethren:

Among all the uncertainties of life there is one constant. Funeral directors smile, exude friendliness, purr compassion and have great respect for the priest. I never thought of these sweet folks as anything but gentle and deferential. Then I saw them transfigured before me…. Something akin to guerrilla war broke out in our church…. The funeral industry is big business. Maybe they own the parish church and nobody told us.

Mortuary Management soon had reason to bewail an even more egregious instance