Diocese of Niagara: where are the bodies buried?

Under the cathedral parking lot, apparently.

They were buried in the 19th century and have lain there unmolested ever since. The diocese plans to dig them up to rescue them, as Dean Peter Wall put it, from “asphalt hell.” It has nothing to do with the revenue the diocese will collect from the multimillion dollar condos planned for the land. Nothing at all.

From here:

Nineteenth century records stored in a McMaster University library may bring the Niagara Anglican diocese much closer to identify the remains of hundreds of people buried under Hamilton’s Christ’s Church Cathedral parking lot.

“The church has actually kept very, very detailed records of who was interred in the cemetery like that,” said Myron Groover, a librarian of archives and rare books at McMaster. “And those records all still exist, and in fact, are preserved in multiple copies.”

The bodies, Groover says, were buried from 1832 to 1853. And if the diocese gets its way, the remains be exhumed and identified — all in order to make way for a multi-million dollar condo project.

On Wednesday, the Very Rev. Peter Wall told city councillors the Niagara Anglican diocese would like to identify and remove the bodies, now buried in “asphalt hell,” beneath the parking lot of the James Street North church.

2 thoughts on “Diocese of Niagara: where are the bodies buried?

  1. This is beyond reprehensible.

    Firstly, to pave over a cemetery to make a parking lot, without first transferring the bodies to another acceptable location shows a lack of respect on the part of those that made that decision. Not sure when that was done, but it does reveal a rather disturbing part of the Diocese of Niagara and how it treats those it has been entrusted to serve.

    Secondly, this entire project is nothing more than a cash grab. The Cathedral is no longer financially viable, at least not through the traditional plate offerings. But what does the Diocese of Niagara care about tradition. So long as they can keep their pretty Cathedral and feel important they obviously do not care about much else.

    Sad. Just plain sad.

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