Baby Anthony Mary laid to rest

MORRISTOWN  Dressed in sport jackets and school uniforms, a small group of students from Delbarton School here make footprints on a shaded and snow-covered rise in historic Orchard Street cemetery in Dover. One by one they approach a small baby’s casket there and place a daisy or lily on top of it.

Along with Benedictine Father Hilary O'Leary, who led a burial rite Dec. 18, the Delbarton students gathered around the coffin to sing “Silent Night” — fitting in marking the Christmas season and in marking the peaceful closure of the short life and tragic death of the baby boy whom they named Anthony Mary. These members of the all-boys Catholic school in Morris County, who belong to its Wave 4 Life pro-life ministry, had the honor of providing this stillborn baby a funeral Mass on campus and a burial in the cemetery near Civil War soldiers. The baby was found thrown away and abandoned in a Mine Hill recycling center in October.

“It was emotional. I didn’t know the baby. But when I lifted up the casket for the first time, I thought, ‘This is a life that was not given a shot,’ ” said John Manahan, a junior, a pallbearer and reader at the funeral Mass, who helped establish Wave 4 Life, which, among other activities, provides funerals and burials for the unclaimed bodies of people, who have been forgotten or abandoned. A parishioner of Assumption, Morristown, he told The Beacon afterward, “It was difficult but it was good that we were able to give this baby a final resting place. Anthony Mary didn’t have a family, so we welcomed him into the Delbarton family,” he said.

That morning, Manahan and Finn Gannon, another Delbarton junior, carried Anthony Mary’s casket from the hearse and into the St. Mary’s Abbey Church on campus. Father O’Leary, the Benedictine Abbey’s formation director, celebrated the funeral Mass here, which was attended by Wave 4 Life members and school parents. Manahan and Gannon, along with Jack Townshend, a junior, and Andrew Madonna, proclaimed the Scripture readings and led prayers. Another student, John Paciga, led a choir that sang hymns of praise for the liturgy, said Elizabeth Mainardi, Wave 4 Life adviser and Delbarton science teacher.

For the funeral Mass, Wave 4 Life chose Matt 10:26-31 for the Gospel, which proclaims, “Are not two sparrows sold for a small coin? Yet not one of them falls to the ground without your Father’s knowledge. Even all the hairs of your head are counted. So do not be afraid; you are worth more than many sparrows.”

In his homily, Father O’Leary reminded the congregation that during Christmas, “We focus on the Child, the Son of God, who came to save us.”

“This baby was made in the image of God. What we are doing flows from that,” Father O’Leary, who also led the Rite of Committal at the cemetery, told The Beacon afterward. “No child should die alone. We are doing this out of respect and love for this human being. It’s very sad to see the little coffin, but it was important for us to do it. This experience will impact our boys for the rest their lives,” he said.

Billy Schroeder, a senior, who helped establish Wave 4 Life, delivered a eulogy that he wrote for the baby. He said, “Though the circumstances surrounding Anthony’s death are very tragic, we recognize that his life, like all human lives, are gifts from God and something to celebrate.”

“We recognize that his mother is probably scared, heartbroken and distraught. Just as we pray for baby Anthony, so we should pray for his mother and father through this difficult time. Truly, even when our society may not always show respect for each and every life, we believe in the sanctity of life,” said Schroeder. “Here, at this funeral, we are showing baby Anthony that though no one may have been with him when he died, we are with him now, and God will be with him forever.”

At the end of Mass, the pallbearers carried the casket out of St. Mary’s Abbey Church and back into the hearse, as worshippers sang the hymn, “Be Thou My Vision.” The 70-student Wave 4 Life named the baby Anthony Mary in honor of St. Anthony Mary Claret, whose feast day is Oct. 24, the day the boy’s body was discovered, and St. Anthony of Padua, the patron saint of the lost, Schroeder said.

That day, Anthony’s funeral and burial was made possible through several donations. They included: Toby Bizub, owner of Bizub-Parker Funeral Home in Little Falls, whose son, Thomas, attends Delbarton, who donated his services, including the hearse that took the baby's body to the church and cemetery; the burial plot from the cemetery’s trustees; and the excavation and covering of the grave from John Sperry, owner of G. Sperry & Sons in Dover, said Mainardi, who has five children.

The burial on Dec. 18 marked the conclusion of a case that involved the Oct. 24 discovery of the baby in a dumpster at the Community Recycling Center in Mine Hill, which was investigated by the Morris County Medical Examiner and the Prosecutor's Office. Delbarton asked for and eventually received custody of the baby’s body to give it a proper burial. Mainardi contacted Drew Bauman, an attorney, who has worked on hundreds of guardianship cases. Working with the medical examiner and prosecutor, he received permission from the Superior Court on Dec. 8 to act as administrator over the child, so Delbarton could hold a funeral Mass and burial for him, Mainardi said.

Baby Anthony’s funeral and burial marks the fourth service that Wave 4 Life has performed for the abandoned over its two years in existence. It planned a funeral and burial for stillborn baby girl, Mary Grace, and funerals for two adults. Schroeder, Manahan, Gannon and Townsend serve as student coordinators of the ministry, which also has passed out cupcakes to advertise the prolife message for Cupcakes for Life on Oct. 8; helped out at Covenant House in Newark, which helps homeless youth; and joined the annual March for Life in Washington, D.C., she said.

“This [funeral and burial] was a shining moment for our boys,” said Mainardi, inspired to start Wave 4 Life by a media report about a similar ministry at a school in Boston. “Our boys were moved by the circumstances. The mood that day was somber. They had a clear understanding of what they were doing and of the sanctity of life,” she said.