Or because their families don’t have the money for a Catholic burial, and taking the ashes to the place that represents so much Cuban spirituality and patriotism seems like the most dignified alternative, no matter what the church says.
”It is Miami’s wall of lament,” says Monsignor Agustin Roman, Cuban Miami’s longtime spiritual leader, who ran a fundraising campaign in the 1960s to build la Ermita. “We know people throw ashes back there. But it is not respectful to the departed. If you throw them to the sea, they become fish food. We have a cemetery niche where we will take someone’s ashes if the family cannot afford proper burial.”
There are signs posted along the water’s edge:
“No swimming, fishing, alcoholic beverages, animals, feeding of the pigeons, scattering of human ashes before first seeing a priest for orientation.”
Mostly, people follow the rules.
