Posted on 08/13/2010 5:09:21 AM PDT by NYer
NEW ORLEANS -- An order of Benedictine monks sued Louisiana regulators Thursday for blocking them from selling handmade caskets because the monks are not licensed funeral directors.
The monks of the 121-year-old St. Joseph Abbey, in St. Tammany Parish north of New Orleans, charge the state Board of Embalmers and Funeral Directors is attempting to maintain a casket cartel, and that board members are mostly engaged in industry they regulate.
They claim the regulations are unconstitutional.
The monks planned to sell their wooden caskets for $1,500 or $2,000 to support the abbey.
They tried to get an exemption from the regulations in 2008 and 2010, but legislators rejected the requests.
A lawyer for the embalmers board could not immediately be reached for comment.
WOODWORKS
Catholic Ping
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It is typical of regulatory boards that they do not actually protect the public as they say they do, but rather they protect from competition those who are already established in the businesses which they regulate by erecting barriers to entry for new competitors. Even more so in a place as well known for its corruption as Louisiana...
Every state has this problem. It can be funeral directors, well diggers, etc. Their interest is limiting the number of new entrants.
What, is the government of La. worried someone might get hurt using one of those caskets?
Gee whiz! Like anyone will care what box they are thrown into.
THEY ARE DEAD!
As an amateur woodworker myself, I love those caskets. Their simplicity is wonderful.
Typical government policy of protecting their own.
Ask the little Lemonade Stand girl outside Portland, Oregon, about regulations! Absurd!
Funerals are the biggest rip-off in America.
“someone might get hurt using one of those caskets?”
Yes. Some funeral home might not get to charge an excessive price to some person in their time of grief.
“In Louisiana it is legal to bury your dead wrapped in Grandma’s moth eaten sheet, (okay maybe that is an exaggeration but so is the opposition to these Monks attempting to survive without the outside world, including the Catholic Church, supporting them).”
“It’s not like the Brothers are standing on the street corner next to the other purveyors of illegal goods whispering “Psst. Buddy, wanna’ buy a casket…”
http://ppjg.wordpress.com/2010/08/13/the-ultimate-underground-market/
I love those plain caskets and told my husband if I go first and he gets me a cadillac casket I’d come back to haunt him.
I want to be buried in a plain pine box!
When I croak, that “monastic style” is about all the casket I’m interested in having my family pay for.
I like the traditional shaped caskets:
http://www.trappistcaskets.com/caskets/simple_shaped_pine.php
That whole area is filled with Catholic orders. There’s a cloister down the road and a convent around the corner. Used to be a religious retreat not too far. I think someone used to own much of the land and willed it to the church because they own a large chunk of it from what I understand.
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