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Published: July 28, 2010

A ministry, not a business

Lobbying effort leads to exemption of Catholic cemeteries from federal consumer protection bill

The Catholic Legislative Network, an email alert system of the California Catholic Conference, the political arm of the state’s bishops, has congratulated its members in a July 23 email for responding quickly “to an Action Alert designed to prevent Federal regulation of religious cemeteries.”

“Thank you to all who responded to the alert and for your quick turnaround,” said the email. At issue was a bill – H.R. 3655 -- by U.S. Rep. Bobby Rush, D-IL, called “The Bereaved Consumer’s Bill of Rights Act.” As originally written, Rep. Rush’s bill would have required the Federal Trade Commission to oblige all providers of funeral goods and services in the U.S. to follow new consumer-protection regulations.

Among the provisions: (1) provide consumers with accurate, itemized price information for each specific funeral good or service offered for sale; (2) prohibit these providers from misrepresenting what federal, state, and local laws require in protecting consumers;
(3) include disclosures in pre-paid contracts regarding fees or penalties to be assessed for cancellation or transfer, by the purchaser, of burial, cremation, or entombment rights to different facilities, and (4) retain records of the date and location of each burial, cremation, and entombment as well as the corresponding rights of disposition (i.e., perpetual or term), and make those records available to federal, state, and local governments.”

The impetus for Rep. Rush’s bill was the discovery in July 2009 of the unauthorized removal of hundreds of human bodies, and the reselling of grave plots, at Burr Oak Cemetery in Alsip, Illinois. Rush held “field hearings” about the Burr Oak scandal. He said in a prepared statement that when he returned to Washington, “any suspicions that Burr Oak was an aberration or a mere figment of society’s imagination quickly diminished. A little more than a month following our scheduled Chicago field hearing took place, fresh allegations of unlawful grave desecrations and the resale of grave plots at Eden Memorial Park, a Jewish cemetery in Mission Hills, CA, and the Mellwood Cemetery in DeKalb County Georgia, also came to light.”

Not long thereafter, it was discovered that thousands of gravesites at the Arlington National Cemetery could have been mislabeled.

The funeral industry split on whether Rush’s bill was a good idea. The Funeral Consumers Alliance and the National Funeral Directors Association supported the bill, while the International Cemetery, Cremation and Funeral Association – and through it, several state cemetery associations – opposed the bill.

“Nobody objects to the disclosures in the bill,” said Robert Fells, a spokesman for the ICCFA. “But I can give you 16,000 reasons to object – failure to comply with the FTC’s new rules could mean automatic fines up to $16,000 per violation. Compliance costs would be passed on to consumers.”

Fells was reluctant to go on the record about the so-called “religious exemption” lobbied for and won by groups like the California Catholic Conference. He said that in the spirit of collegiality, the ICCFA was happy that Catholic and other religious cemeteries won the exemption, but conceded, “it’s a stretch to say that regulation of the cemetery business is an attempt to regulate religious ministries.”

But that is exactly the argument the California Catholic Conference and similar groups made. In an April 26 letter to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce, the Catholic Cemetery Conference, which represents 6,2888 Catholic cemeteries in the U.S., wrote that the bill would add costs, preempt existing state exemptions for religious cemeteries, federalize local religious operations, that the FTC would be “policing what religious organizations say to their members,” and that the bill gives the FTC “oversight into internal operations of religious services.”

After the committee received the letter -- and complaints from other religious groups – Rep. Rush temporarily pulled his bill from consideration in early May. When it came up for consideration again on July 21, Rep. Phil Gingrey, R-GA, introduced an amendment exempting cemeteries “organized, operated, managed and owned by a religious domination,” provided they are not affiliated with a for-profit provider.

The bill – including the Gingrey amendment – was approved by the committee on a 15-12 vote and sent to the House floor for additional consideration.

“You can report that Chairman Rush’s ‘no’ vote reflects the fact that he stands by the concerns he’s raised before, which includes the fact that a religious affiliation should not mean that consumer protections should not apply,” Sharon Jenkins, a spokeswoman for the congressman wrote in an email to California Catholic Daily.

It was not just Rep. Rush who was unhappy with the committee’s decision to carve out the “religious exemption.” The Funeral Consumers Alliance characterized the letter from the Catholic Cemeteries Conference as “alarmist,” and called the group “a lobbying association” that was making “exaggerated and just plain false claims.”

“Objecting to the idea that Catholics who buy burials at church cemeteries are ‘consumers’ -- and ignoring the fact that parishioners usually pay thousands of dollars for the privilege -- the Conference claimed Catholic cemeteries were a ‘ministry,’ and therefore off-limits to regulators,” said the Funeral Consumers Alliance. “Crying government interference with religious practice is fightin' words in the United States. Real instances of government meddling in religious practices should alarm anyone, but the CCC is crying wolf. Nothing in HR3655 would interfere in any way with the religious burial rites or practices of any faith tradition.”

The Catholic Cemetery Conference’s letter strongly argued otherwise, apparently swaying committee members. “We are not objecting to ‘telling the truth,’” said the letter. “We already do that. We never needed a federal regulator to make us do what is right. But this regime is a bold federalization of religious works, without basis and without precedent.”

The Catholic Legislative Network’s July 23 email celebrated the victory. “A concerted effort by Catholic, Jewish and other religious groups -- including the Catholic Legislative Network -- helped secure an amendment granting the exemption,” said the email. “The bi-partisan approval of the exemption indicates that the various advocacy networks as well as the activity of many religious organizations effectively communicated the concern to elected representatives.”

© California Catholic Daily 2010. All Rights Reserved.