I returned home to Lansford from California to attend my Marian High School class reunion early in October. In addition to visiting dear old friends, I also drove around the area looking at all the places that were meaningful to me in my youth, not the least being visiting the cemeteries of my parents, grandparents and sibling.

In visiting Saint Michael cemetery in Summit Hill, I was insulted by what I saw. What should have been a time of quiet reflection and prayer for me was displaced by near anger at the view of a monstrosity within the cemetery that I could only see as a desecration of sacred ground. The reverence that I expected to find included a farm within its boundaries.

I cannot even fathom how a project like that, in a cemetery of all places, could be even considered to be a good idea, let alone approved at any level. Someone I ran into told me that it was a garden to feed the poor. While that may be a noble gesture, it could not be more than a mere gesture. It appears that the rot within would not feed rodents. Whatever money was spent on building it could have provided so much more for the poor than anything that “garden” will produce.

In any event, the final resting place of my loved ones is the last place I would expect something like that would be placed. I sent a letter to Father Hoffa and he did say that the ground beneath the garden was not consecrated.

While I have to assume that may be technically correct, there is no way anyone walking through the gate could possibly know that. In any event, the “garden” itself couldn’t be but mere inches away from what IS consecrated ground.

My letter to Bishop Schlert went unanswered. To me it was a distraction and an eyesore. I would find it hard to believe that I am the only one to have had this experience and share this same opinion.

Joe Yanacek

Emerald Hills, California