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Blessings rained down Wednesday upon the defiled grounds of Burr Oak Cemetery as an ecumenical rainbow of leaders from diverse houses of worship re-consecrated what was formerly sacred but now is a crime scene.
"Black and white, Jew and Gentile, Protestant and Catholic, Baptist and Greek Orthodox, we are here, all of us with one voice saying, 'These grounds are hallow again,' " said the Rev. Marshall Hatch of New Mount Pilgrim Church in Chicago.
He was among some 50 area religious leaders who converged on the beleaguered Alsip cemetery to tour and bless the sites where corpses were allegedly illegally unearthed and dumped in mass graves as part of an alleged grave-reselling scheme.
"We all come to grieve again as if it's the funeral over and over again," Rabbi Daniel Sherville of Northbrook Community Synagogue said. "Bewail the dead, but remember that continuing grief is worse than death."
'Gross depravity'
The clergy were invited and accompanied by Cook County Sheriff Tom Dart, whose office is managing an investigation that has brought the FBI and high-tech equipment that has recovered more than 200 bones or bone fragments from one four-block-wide area alone.
"There are a lot of people who will need a lot of help, some people seeking closure, some people seeking answers -- answers they're not going to be able to get --and they'll be turning to you for help," Dart told them.
Appointed cemetery overseer Roman Szabelski welcomed the religious leaders' firsthand look at the horror sites now cordoned off, saying the grief of hundreds of families whose loved ones are missing will touch many of their congregations.
"What has happened here, the gross depravity of those involved for the sake of financial gain, defies understanding," said Bishop Demetrius of the Greek Orthodox Metropolis of Chicago.
However, the clergymen stressed there is consolation.
"The great message of our faith is that our salvation, our final resting of our soul, does not rely on the final resting of our bodies," said the Rev. Rod Reinhart of St. Joseph's & St. Aidan's Episcopal Church in Blue Island.
