Ill Disposal
Clara Sarrocco on the Disrespect of Human Composting
One day many years ago, in a moment of adolescent hubris, I said to my mother, "Why is such a fuss made over burying the dead? After I am dead, I don't care what happens to my body." After a pause, she responded, "I had to sweat blood to bring you into the world, and that is what you think of it." My mother knew the corporal works of mercy.
At the time, I had never heard of Sophocles' play Antigone, in which the eponymous heroine defies King Creon's orders not to bury her brother Polyneices, who had died in battle and whom the king deemed a traitor unworthy of burial. Antigone proclaimed that her right to bury Polyneices came from "the immutable unwritten laws of Heaven. They were not born today nor yesterday; they die not; and none knoweth whence they sprang."
THIS ARTICLE ONLY AVAILABLE TO SUBSCRIBERS.
FOR QUICK ACCESS:
Clara Sarrocco is the longtime secretary of The New York C. S. Lewis Society. She has taught classes on C. S. Lewis at the Institute for Religious Studies at St. Joseph's Seminary and is the president of the Long Island Chapter of University Faculty for Life. Her articles and reviews have appeared in numerous publications, including Touchstone, New Oxford Review, Gilbert, The Chesterton Review, St. Austin's Review, and The International Philosophical Quarterly.
Get six issues (one year) of Touchstone PLUS full online access including pdf downloads for only $39.95. That's only $3.34 per month!
Get a one-year full-access subscription to the Touchstone online archives for only $19.95. That's only $1.66 per month!
bulk subscriptions
Order Touchstone subscriptions in bulk and save $10 per sub! Each subscription includes 6 issues of Touchstone plus full online access to touchstonemag.com—including archives, videos, and pdf downloads of recent issues for only $29.95 each! Great for churches or study groups.
Transactions will be processed on a secure server.
more on culture from the online archives
31.6—November/December 2018
Victimhood Culture Scapegoats Its Very Source by Michael P. Foley
33.1—January/February 2020
Do You Know Your Child’s Doctor?
The Politicization of Pediatrics in America by Alexander F. C. Webster
31.2—March/April 2018
The Transmission of Christianity Is Not a New Task by Nathanael Devlin
more from the online archives
29.5—Sept/Oct 2016
on Past & Present Atheism & the Invention of Happiness by Jordan Bissell
25.3—May/Jun 2012
Calls for Freedom, Democracy & Secularism End Up with None of the Above by Hunter Baker
33.2—March/April 2020
Encounters with Faith & Forgiveness in Communities of Faith by Nicole M. King
calling all readers
Please Donate
"There are magazines worth reading but few worth saving . . . Touchstone is just such a magazine."
—Alice von Hildebrand
"Here we do not concede one square millimeter of territory to falsehood, folly, contemporary sentimentality, or fashion. We speak the truth, and let God be our judge. . . . Touchstone is the one committedly Christian conservative journal."
—Anthony Esolen, Touchstone senior editor
