At the beginning of November, the Catholic Church invites believers to first celebrate the Solemnity of All Saints and then direct their prayerful gaze towards those who have departed from this world, also encouraging them to regard the mystery of death not as the “last word” of human destiny but rather as a passage to eternal life.
Even if the mystery of death utterly beggars the imagination, the Catholic Church teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. Moreover, according to the Christian faith, bodily death will be vanquished when man, who was ruined by his own doing, is restored to wholeness by an almighty and merciful Saviour.
It is essentially this kind of understanding of life and death that spurs so many members of the Catholic community to flock in full devotion, especially at this time of year, to the burial places of their dear departed to pray for them and confirm their deep respect towards them while, at the same time, pause to reflect on the meaning of earthly life and to nourish hope in a blessed eternity.
Respect for the dead and their graves is one of the most ancient values of civilisation. All of humanity embraced it. A monumental evidence of this was registered when, in codifying humanitarian law, the 1929 convention relative to the treatment of prisoners of war proclaimed this principle and made it an obligation to mark graves in such a way that they can always be found again. Additionally, the present text includes the recommendation that the dead should be buried according to the rites of the religion to which they belonged and the obligation to mark graves in such a way that they can always be found again.
The graves of ancestors are very important for people. Respect for graves is considered an act of filial piety towards the same ancestors. Yet, every now and then we continue to witness despicable acts of vandalism on graves, such as scrawling “messages” or obscenities on or near them, targeting headstones, destroying vases and breaking pictures of the dead, offending the national traditional culture, which reveres ancestors, and hurting people’s religious sensibilities.
Another similar despicable act took place just two days ago when vandals once again targeted the grave of Prime Minister Lawrence Gonzi’s family, where his parents are buried.
The grave of Dr Gonzi’s mother at the Addolorata Cemetery was vandalised, damaged and torched last May as was the family grave of Żejtun mayor Joe Attard in July.
Causing wilful damage to property and other forms of anti-social behaviour are in themselves deplorable criminal acts, whatever the motive behind them. However, going so low as to deliberately vandalise burial places and, perhaps, also scrawl obscenities on the burial place, amounts to a shocking act that invariably deserves the absolute condemnation of all those who not only reject such cowardly and shameful acts but also really hold in full respect all the departed whoever they may be. Indeed, burial is an act of reverence and respect for the body which has housed the person during one’s life and a cemetery is a sacred place that offers a comforting atmosphere in which love for family and friends is remembered.
It has been said that one can measure how civilised a culture is by the way that society’s dead are treated. When vandals strike cemeteries they are attacking not only those no longer living. Such acts are also an assault and an insult to relatives and the whole of society. The costs are not only those for the restoration work needed regarding physical stone. There is no way to quantify the huge emotional and sentimental damage.