The Good Funeral Guide

The Natural Death Handbook, Fifth Edition

A thoroughly updated and revised edition of the Natural Death Centre‘s celebrated handbook. Now presented alongside a new collection of essays on death, dying and funeral practices by doctors, historians, authors, poets, theologians and artists including Richard Barnett, David Jay Brown, Dr Sheila Cassidy, Charles Cowling, Bill Drummond, Stephen Grasso, Maggi Hambling, Graham Harvey, Gary Lachman, Nick Reynolds, and Dignity in Dying.

It’s out in May 2012!

Yesterday’s funeral of mafia aristo Salvatore ‘Sal the Ironworker’ Montagna was notable for the thinness of the attendance — in contrast to the hundreds who turned up to say farewell to Nicolo Rizzuto Sr in November last year. Montagna was shot last Thursday as he left a house on Ile Vaudry. Mortally wounded, leapt into the river to escape his attacker.

It seems that Montagna, onetime acting boss of the Bonanno family crime business in New York, was manoeuvring to become head of the Rizzuto empire in Montreal.

More photos here.

More about Sal here.

We love a gangster funeral here at the GFG. More on this one here. Well done Mr Bey for finishing his life so virtuously. 

The Daily Mail captioned this photo of the Mark Duggan funeral A salute to a ‘soldier’: Mourners lined the streets and raised their palms to say farewell to the father-of-four. Implicit was the allegation that this was a gangster salute, something guaranteed to send surges of fear and loathing through the indignation-hungry hearts of its chav-porn-addicted readers.

The reality turns out to have been somewhat (what the hell) boringly and very much more beautifully the reverse. The mourners were responding to the call by Bishop Kwaku Frimpong-Manson to “stretch our hands towards the casket and thank God for Mark’s life as he begins his heavenly journey.”

Posted by Charles

Belgian photographer Anton Kusters has just finished a project following a yakuza family. Yakuza? Japanese organized criminals. More here.

A magazine journalist asked Kusters this question:

Photographically, what was the most powerful situation that you encountered during this project?

He replied:

The funeral, which was mind-blowing. I got a phone call that Miyamoto-san, a high ranking boss of the clan, had a stroke and was dying, and I flew over to pay him my last respects. The family appreciated that gesture, and they allowed me to photograph the funeral.

It was incredible not only because it was a traditional Japanese funeral — the body was cremated in a special manner, there were flowers filling the coffin and other cultural specifics — but on top of that, it was a yakuza funeral, so there were 250 or perhaps even more standing in line to be greeted. Every time someone came to pay their respects, they would all bow. It was impressive to watch, and at the same time, it was a very touching moment.

Read the whole article here. 

I know a lot of you like a good gangster funeral. This one’s not premier cru, but it’s not bad.

“My father was no saint,” Ryan McElroy, one of Mr. McElroy’s three children, said in a eulogy. “But people said he could light up a room. He’s been away 15, 20 years, and you still felt protected by him.”

Read the entire account in the New York Times here.

A mourner salutes police and media as he arrives at the visitation for slain Montreal Mafia boss Nicolo Rizzuto Sr

I know you all enjoy a good mobster funeral. Here’s one in Montreal, scheduled for today.

A regular attendee of Mob and other funerals in a landmark Little Italy church issued a fearless prediction on the eve of Monday’s 11 a.m. service for Nicolo Rizzuto Sr.

“It’ll be full,” Tony Romano, 81, said confidently Sunday afternoon of the anticipated turnout for the Montreal Mafia patriarch at the Notre Dame de la Defense (Madonna della Difesa, or Our Lady of Protection Church).

“I was at Frank Cotroni’s (funeral) here. I was at the grandson’s. And I’ll be at this one,” said Romano, who professed a to-each-his-own attitude to the Mafioso lifestyle.

At least one thing will be different from last Jan. 2.

When the funeral mass for Nicolo Rizzuto Jr., the 42-year-old grandson, was held at the same church after he’d been eliminated in a gangland-style hit in Notre Dame de Grâce, granddad Nicolo Rizzuto Sr. attended as a mourner.

But it will be the body of the 86-year-old – gunned down in his Cartierville kitchen at suppertime last Wednesday by a single high-powered bullet – in the casket this time around.

The church … has as one of its features a well-known fresco that includes former Italian dictator Benito Mussolini astride a horse

Full story here.

The window through which the fatal bullet was fired. Retired RCMP organized crime analyst Pierre de Champlain said when members of the Mafia want to kill a leader, it’s usually done in public. [Source]

Read more

And more.

Many American funerary practices are so barking mad I don’t bother writing about them. This blog is Britcentric not because it is xenophobic or incurious but simply because it confines itself to goings-on of relevance to Brits.

Sure, we’ve picked up one or two bad habits from the US. Embalming may or may not be one of them. And we have a good deal to learn from their home funeralists and those who are pioneering natural burial.

Once in a while I see Americans doing things that make me relieved to be British. Here, we pride ourselves on our tolerance and sense of fair play. It’s the positive spin we put on our disposition to shrug and acquiesce. Over there they can be far more clamorous in the way they express themselves.

One long-running story I have shunned concerns the activities of the Westboro Baptist Church. Claiming the right of free speech granted by the First Amendment of the US Constitution, members of the church picket the funerals of soldiers in the belief that their death is God’s punishment on America for tolerating homosexuality. More here.

And now we learn that funerals have, in certain milieux, become a revenge-opp. Read all about it here.

Sort of puts a perspective on things, doesn’t it?

There’s an interesting piece (if you find this sort of thing interesting) in the Australian magazine Eureka Street, a very interesting looking publication promoted by the Australian Jesuits, but remarkably non-doctrinaire and broadminded in its treatment of things.

The piece, by Andrew Hamilton, a theologian from Melbourne, debates the sort of funeral appropriate for child abusers and for criminals like Carl Williams. He begins:

In the last month Catholic funerals have led to controversy. Many Catholics complained that Carl Williams was allowed burial in a Catholic Church. And some victims of sexual abuse in the Catholic Church expressed anger that bishops and priests in robes glorified the funeral of a priest who had been charged with sexual abuse of minors, but who died before the case could be brought.

We are all sinners, but where, if anywhere, should a line be drawn, especially now that most religious funerals will contain an element of life celebration?

The focus on the life of the dead person makes funerals of notorious malefactors problematic. When all involved in the funeral see themselves as sinners, brought together to pray for God’s mercy upon another sinner, it will seem natural that public sinners should have a church funeral which is widely attended.

But if funerals are seen only to commemorate the life of the dead, to praise their virtues, and to commend them to shared memory, those who attend may be seen to endorse the quality of the dead person’s life. They come, not just to bury the dead, but to praise them. If the funeral evokes the virtues of a scoundrel whose life was publicly scandalous, those who take part may seem to be complicit in a lie. Church officers who celebrate the funeral or make the church building available may also be seen as reprehensible.

Hamilton concludes:

Within the Christian community splendid ceremonies with processions of robed bishops and priests may heighten the sense that the dead person is precious in God’s eyes and may evoke God’s mercy. But those whom a dead priest has abused and the wider society are as likely to see in the celebration an enactment of power and defiance.

In such funerals it may be better to draw on the resources of Catholic liturgy that allow people to gather to seek forgiveness, express grief and pray for conversion. Plain dress, an unornamented church, honest prayers and periods of silence can express respect for the dead person and our shared need of God’s mercy. A one-style liturgy does not fit all circumstances.

Read it all here.

Another gangster funeral today. No apologies for this. Gangster funerals are such ticklish affairs: it’s so difficult to gild a gangster when he’s dead.

Eamonn Dunne, special subject drugs, responsible for the murders of at least a dozen people including some of his own associates, was blown away while drinking in a Dublin pub.

His brother said of him: “You couldn’t ask for a better role model to be honest with you.” This drew a round of applause. The celebrant, Monsignor Dermot Clarke said with judicious ambiguity: “Life is precious and we should value it. Some have lost the sense of the sacredness of human life and that is to be regretted.” Mgsr Clarke also requested that nobody should smoke on church grounds. “The law of the land pertains here,” he told the congregation.

During the service, a football shirt, a ball and Dunne’s mobile phone were offered as gifts symbolising Dunne’s life journey. The offertory was accompanied by a woman singing a version of Bryan Adams’s ‘Heaven’.

You’ll Never Walk Alone – a song synonymous with his favourite soccer club Liverpool – was played as his coffin was lowered into the ground.

Towards the end of the service the congregation listened to Charlie Landsborough singing My Forever Friend. It is possible that those present supposed Eamonn to be the subject, not Jesus. Ah, well.

Read the account in the Irish Independent here.