Casket-Selling Monks Unravel Louisiana Law
Casket-Selling Monks Unravel Louisiana Law
NEW ORLEANS (CN) - The Louisiana funeral board cannot keep a Catholic monastery from manufacturing and selling handmade wooden caskets, the 5th Circuit ruled.
St. Joseph Abbey and the deacon of Benedictine monastery, Mark Coudrain, had filed suit in 2010 after the Louisiana Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors allegedly threatened its monks with criminal charges, fines and up to 180 days in jail unless they stopped selling wooden caskets.
Coudrain is an ordained deacon of the Archdiocese of New Orleans and is director of the abbey's Christian Life Center and Saint Joseph Woodworks, which makes monastic caskets by hand for sale to the public.
Saint Benedict, after whom the abbey is named, instructed monastic communities to support themselves financially through the practice of common occupations. For centuries, Benedictine monks, and monks of other orders, have engaged in trades such as farming, brewing beer and winemaking.
http://www.courthousenews.com/2013/03/27/56110.htm
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