Steve Skojec

In January, I posted about the moral questions surrounding the seemingly popular exhibits travelling the country that display plasticized human bodies for, presumably, educational and entertainment purposes. My post at the time mentioned Cincinatti Archbishop Daniel Pilarczyk’s instruction to Catholic Schools that these exhibits are not an appropriate field trip for students because they fail to adequately respect the dead in accordance with Catholic teaching.

Today, I discovered (via Kansas City Catholic) that Bishop Finn of Kansas City has issued a similar statement. While it’s hardly a tour de force on the subject, Bishop Finn echoes the teaching of the Church:

My continuing objections to such commercial exhibits are rooted in strong Catholic teaching on the God-given dignity of the human person, who is a unity of body and soul. The various Bodies exhibits now popular throughout the United States seem to go beyond the Church’s acceptance of body donation after death for the advance of biological research.

It is also true, that at least some of these Bodies exhibits are under investigation in an effort to determine the precise circumstances under which the bodies, apparently all from China, were acquired.

This week I joined Archbishop Joseph Naumann of the Archdiocese of Kansas City Kansas in a statement opposing these displays, not primarily because of questions about the sources of the human specimens, but because they use real person’s bodies for this kind of public display.

Coincidentally, this week I was preparing to celebrate a funeral Mass as I have done many times as a priest. I took the occasion to re-read a section of the Church’s Instruction on the Order of Christian Funerals concerning the burial of the human body.

There we read,

“. The body which lies in death naturally recalls the personal story of faith, the loving family bonds, the friendships, and the words and acts of kindness of the deceased person. Indeed, the human body is inextricably associated with the human person, which acts and is experienced by others through that body. It is the body whose hands clothed the poor and embraced the sorrowing.”

“.The Church’s reverence for the sacredness of the human body grows out of a reverence and concern both natural and supernatural for the human person. The body of the deceased brings forcefully to mind the Church’s conviction that the human body is in Christ a temple of the Holy Spirit and is destined for future glory at the resurrection of the dead.” (nos. 411-412)

On the basis of these principles of human respect, I ask you to consider joining me in avoiding these particular Bodies exhibits.

I’m grateful for the moral leadership that is emerging on this issue. We have a culture that is very detatched from propriety when it comes to science. While this isn’t always a bad thing, many of the shows on Discovery Health or the History Channel or even the wide variety of museums and exhibits that we enjoy can desensitize us to the respect for the dead that arises out of the inherent dignity of the human person.

It’s good to be reminded of where the line is.