To the Editor:

I am one of the many affected by the choice of the St. Mary’s cemetery committee to remove all unapproved items from graves and pile them carelessly behind the sandstone vault.

I believe we deserve at least a public apology from the church and from the specific people who thoughtlessly vandalized the graves.

It was neither their place nor their right to do so. They had the choice to be professional and Christian about the situation, and had many venues and resources to do so.

Instead, they chose to take matters into their own hands while violating and destroying the dignity of the graves. It does not matter how frustrated they were, a grave is a sacred place -not to be harmed or vandalized! This change to restore dignity all but fell on itself simply because of the lack of patience and understanding of the committee. They were trying to make a statement by piling the trash instead of throwing it away.

How would they feel if they visited their parent’s/grandparent’s/siblings/friend’s grave and saw it stripped of all the relics and flowers they had placed in memory of their loved one? “So in everything, do unto others as you would have them do unto you...” (Matthew 7:12), do they not practice what is written in their Bibles?

The timing was very poor, being the first really nice weekend of the year and the weekend before Memorial Day. They did not even give the community a proper warning or a chance to defend or clean up the graves themselves.

I do question the mental state and capacity of these committee members and the Church itself. If they can make such poor decisions about the cemetery, what other damaging decisions is the church going to make? How many more people have to suffer at the hand of St. Mary’s church?

This community deserves better than this. We aren’t incapable rednecks who don’t understand logic. We are real people with real feelings. More importantly, those buried in the cemetery deserve more respect than that.

I am a Christian, but not Catholic, and do not attend the Catholic Mass. It is unacceptable to only state the clean up of the cemetery in the Catholic bulletin.

Sorry to say, but not everyone attends St. Mary’s church, and for good reason as we can see! I urge the Catholic church and their wise committee members to fix their mistakes, and make things right again with the community.

Courtney LaPointe

Potsdam