Rift over Billy Graham burial plan
Pastor Dale Morgan
*Rift over Billy Graham burial plan*
Suzanne Goldenberg in Washington
Thursday December 14, 2006
The Guardian
In life he has moved millions with his sermons and provided religious
succour to presidents. In the hereafter his burial site could resemble a
theme park, where visitors enter through a 40ft glass cross and are
greeted by a mechanical talking cow.
As America's leading evangelist, the Rev Billy Graham, enters his
twilight years, a controversy is looming over plans for his burial. At
88 Mr Graham is nearly blind and has Parkinson's disease. He announced
his retirement from preaching last year. His wife, Ruth, is also in poor
health. But plans to inter the couple at a memorial site in Charlotte,
North Carolina, have divided the Graham family, the Washington Post
reported yesterday.
Mr Graham has given his blessing to the site. But his wife refuses to be
buried there. One son, Franklin, the heir apparent to his father's
ministry as president of the Billy Graham Evangelistic Association, has
pressed his parents to be interred there. But younger son Ned supports
his mother's wish for her remains to lie in a more private place in the
mountains of North Carolina.