By CHRISTIE L. CHICOINE
CS&T Staff Writer
The Pennsylvania Attorney General has gone to court to block a gravestone company that operates in the Philadelphia Archdiocese region from selling monuments or grave markers anywhere in the state.
State Attorney General Thomas W. Corbett Jr. says the firm, Catholic Memorials, L.L.C. — which now also operates as “Christian Memorials” — is months behind its promised delivery and installation dates for monuments and cemetery markers the company has contracted to provide.
The state also alleges in the lawsuit, filed July 13 in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas, that the company’s owner, William Jankiewicz, falsely claimed to at least one customer that his firm was certified to sell the gravestones by the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.
The Philadelphia Archdiocese has no connection with the Catholic Memorials company, archdiocesan officials say.
The Archdiocese “neither approves, nor is responsible in any way for, the services or products provided by Catholic Memorials,” according to a statement issued July 13 by the Archdiocese’s Catholic Cemeteries Office.
Attempts by The Catholic Standard & Times to reach Jankiewicz for comment were unsuccessful.
In the state’s lawsuit, the Attorney General is seeking restitution for the bereaved customers, civil penalties, and a court order preventing Jankiewicz’s company from doing further business in the state.
Among the company’s alleged victims, Attorney General Corbett said, was a Chester County woman who said she was promised by Jankiewicz that he would furnish a memorial for her mother’s grave in December, two months after her mother died.
The woman said she paid $3,350 for the gravestone. A month later, she was told by a company employee that it takes six months to complete a stone. After six months, no one from the firm would return her calls asking for information about the status of the memorial, the Attorney General said.
In addition, Corbett said several of Jankiewicz’s customers told his office “the defendant either failed to respond when they contacted him about [similar] delays or … he gave them a variety of excuses as to why the products could not be delivered.”
The Attorney General further alleges in the suit that Jankiewicz failed to register the recent title for his business, “Christian Memorials,” with the Pennsylvania Department of State.
In addition, Corbett said the firm illegally contacted consumers who have officially registered on the state’s “Do Not Call” list.
As for using the word “Catholic” as part of the monument firm’s original name, Philadelphia archdiocesan officials say they repeatedly asked Jankiewicz to remove the word from all public advertising.
The statement by the Archdiocese Cemeteries Office said Jankiewicz’s company failed to respond to an August 2003 written request that “Catholic” be removed from the business’ name, and that the company also failed to respond to the same request after an October 2003 meeting with archdiocesan representatives.
The Archdiocese subsequently sent a warning notice to all of the parishes in the five-county Archdiocese. That letter was also posted in all archdiocesan cemetery offices in March 2004.
“We provided details about Catholic Memorials, L.L.C., as well as the company’s continued refusal to comply with our request,” the Cemeteries Office stated. “Parishioners were reminded that the Archdiocese neither approves nor is responsible in any way for the services or products provided by Catholic Memorials, L.L.C. That remains the case today.”
For more information, contact the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Bureau of Consumer Protection Hotline at (1-800) 441-2555 or check out the Web site www.attorneygeneral.gov.
CS&T Staff Writer Christie L. Chicoine can be reached at (215) 587-2468 or cchicoin@adphila.orgWhen a memorial monument is purchased ...
When a memorial monument is purchased ...
According to the Archdiocese’s Catholic Cemeteries Office, the procedure for purchasing a monument to be erected at a diocesan cemetery typically includes the following steps:
• The lot owner selects the monument style and design from a monument dealer.
The monument dealer and the lot owner complete and sign an “Application to Erect a Memorial.”
• The form is sent to the attention of the appropriate cemetery superintendent by the monument dealer for review.
• Upon the cemetery superintendent’s review and approval of the “Application to Erect a Memorial,” the application is sent to the Catholic Cemeteries Office so that an invoice for the foundation can be prepared and sent to the monument dealer. The foundation fee varies and is based on the square footage of the monument.
• When the invoice for the foundation is paid in full, the area in the cemetery where the monument will be placed is excavated [by cemetery personnel]. The excavation is filled with concrete. This is the foundation upon which the memorial will rest.
• When the foundation is prepared, the cemetery notifies the memorial dealer that the monument can be placed. The memorial dealer is then responsible for setting the monument properly and in accordance with the diocesan cemetery rules and regulations for memorial work.
For more information, contact the Archdiocese’s Catholic Cemeteries Office at (215) 895-3450.