The Anti-Body “Harvesting” of Dead People’s Tattoos, by John M. Grondelski 

By John M. Grondelski, Crisis Magazine, June 1, 2023

John M. Grondelski (Ph.D., Fordham) is a former associate dean of the School of Theology, Seton Hall University, South Orange, New Jersey. All views expressed herein are his own.

The latest fad of “harvesting” the tattoos of dead people is another sign of our culture’s disrespect for the human body.

Postmortem disregard of the body goes on. The Church officially prefers burial, on the principle that a Christian should, even in death, model Christ, who lay three days in a tomb. The Church tolerates cremation, as long as it is not undertaken for the “wrong” reasons (i.e., in denial of the resurrection of the dead), the cremains (the product remaining after cremation) remain intact, and the remains are buried.

In the name of “environmentalism,” secular circles now hawk processes intended to destroy the body to generate a recyclable “product.” Alkaline hydrolysis dissolves flesh and bone into an effluent; “recomposting” (just approved in California as the fifth state to allow it) uses heat and other elements to support bacteria growth, accelerating the reduction of a human body to reusable “top soil” in about 45 days. …

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