Christian Offers Burial Plot for Tamerlan Tsarnaev After Body is Refused Everywhere
'Love Thine Enemy,' Says Retired Schoolteacher
In what can be seen as a truly gracious act, a Yale Divinity School graduate is offering his burial plot for Boston Marathon bomber Tameralan Tsarnaev after the body was refused at nearly all cemeteries who were asked.
This issue surrounding finding a final resting place for Tamerlan gained widespread notoriety after Cambridge City Manager Robert Healey revealed that the body would not be buried within the city's limits.
"I have determined that it is not in the best interest of peace within the city to execute a cemetery deed for a plot within the Cambridge Cemetery for the body of Tamerlan Tsarnaev," Healey said in a statement.
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"The difficult and stressful efforts of the residents of the city of Cambridge to return to a peaceful life would be adversely impacted by the turmoil, protests and wide spread media presence at such an interment," he added.
Paul Douglas Keane, a retired schoolteacher who is currently living in Vermont, saw an opportunity to help a family in despair.
"I've only got one life to lead, and I'm going to be the guy who speaks up for the pariah, for the leper, for the hated person- and for the family in despair," Keane said.
He offered one of his plots at Mount Carmel Burying Grounds in Hamden, Conn., after he revealed that he no longer needs it.
"The only condition is that I do it in memory of my mother who taught Sunday school at the Mt. Carmel Congregational Church for forty years and taught me to love thine enemy," Keane wrote on his blog, The Anti-Yale.
"This person, I don't care what a pariah he is, everybody deserves a burial, so I'm willing to make this offer," Keane wrote. "I also think it would be a nice thing to do in memory of my mother, who did teach me to love thine enemy."
Mayor Scott Jackson of Hamden was taken aback by the offer and said that it has been made a more public process than necessary.
"I certainly hope if this offer is legitimate, and is legitimately being offered in the spirit of whom it claims to be, then I would guess it would actually be done in a different way- in a quiet way, in a Christian way, that requested or required no additional comment," he said.
