Casket-Building Monks Battle Undertakers to Sell Wares

Aug. 27, 2010— -- The legal fight between the coffin-making monks of St. Joseph Abbey and Louisiana's powerful funeral industry looks like a classic mismatch.

In one corner – representing the interests of the state's roughly 400 funeral homes – is the industry-dominated funeral regulatory board.

In the other are the 35 Benedictine monks at the 121-year-old monastery, where a handful of members started making simple wood coffins after Hurricane Katrina destroyed much of the pine forest they had relied on for timber and income. The timber sales had helped pay for the medical and educational needs of the monks.

"When the monks first came to visit I said this sounds like … David versus Goliath," said Jeff Rowes, an attorney at the Institute for Justice, a Virginia-based public interest firm representing the monks in a federal lawsuit filed earlier this month.The lawsuit claims the funeral establishment licensing laws are meant to preserve a "casket cartel" within Louisiana.

The board regulating Louisiana's embalmers and funeral directors is enforcing a state law that makes it a crime for anyone but a licensed establishment to sell "funeral merchandise." Now the coffin-making Benedictines face thousands of dollars in fines and up to 180 days in prison.

"It would be crazy but crazier things have happened in Louisiana," Abbot Justin Brown said of the prospect of jail time.

The dispute dates back to All Saints Day in November 2007, when the cash-strapped monastery officially launched St. Joseph Woodworks out of an old cafeteria. They publicly offered simple wood caskets once made exclusively for members of the religious order.

Carved from cypress grown on the monastery's 1,100-acre property, the caskets are lined with white cloth. The pillows are made by the priest who sews the monks' habits. A deacon blesses each casket before delivery. So far, roughly 70 have been sold, mostly via word-of-mouth and the abbey's website.

The two types of caskets, which Brown described as "simple and simpler," are priced at $1,500 and $2,000. The average cost of a casket elsewhere is about $2,300 though some are priced between $4,000 and $10,000.

But before the monks sold a single casket, the state funeral regulatory board hit them with a cease-and-desist order. They quietly continued their sales while consulting their attorneys and seeking an exemption to the law.