Dec 18, 2008 / 15:35 pm
The body of an aborted or stillborn boy about 17 to 18 weeks old was buried in El Paso on Tuesday, with Bishop of El Paso Armando X. Ochoa presiding at the service.
The child’s body had been found at a wastewater treatment plant. Authorities do not know how the body came to be there, the El Paso Times reports.
After his body was discovered, the child was named John Andrew Rudy.
John’s body was placed in a 24-inch white casket adorned with flowers and a plush teddy bear.
He was laid to rest in Mount Carmel Cemetery's Babyland.
Bishop Ochoa explained that the diocese had asked the medical examiner’s office for his body to give him a proper burial.
"They said the 'specimen' was in a bottle at the morgue," the bishop said, according to the El Paso Times. “They said they don't bury any child under six grams."
"We reverence life, and you and I know there's an embodied soul there," he remarked, asking for prayers for the baby’s unknown parents.
About fifty people from El Paso and Las Cruces, the Knights of Columbus in full regalia and a military chaplain joined the bishop at the funeral. A limousine was also used.
Passersby reportedly stopped to ask whether someone important was being buried.