Funeral celebrant some words spoken at the graveside by members of the Communist party. In general, funerals were considered to be the province of the clergy - even for unbelievers. For example, many funerals for non-believers were performed by the Salvation army. Dally Messenger III records that this first celebrant funeral was for Helen Francis (née Grieves) on 2 July 1975 at the Le Pine Funeral Parlour in Ferntree Gully, a suburb of Melbourne in the state of Victoria. Helen Francis was a young woman who had engaged Messenger as a celebrant for her wedding to Roy Francis some four weeks previously.
A Secular Humanist Declaration have ominous implications for the future of civilization on this planet." A Secular Humanist Declaration A Secular Humanist Declaration was an argument for and statement of support for democratic secular humanism. The document was issued in 1980 by the Council for Democratic and Secular Humanism (CODESH), now the Council for Secular Humanism (CSH). Compiled by Paul Kurtz, it is largely a restatement of the content of the American Humanist Association's 1973 Humanist Manifesto II, of which he was co-author with Edwin H. Wilson. Both Wilson and Kurtz had served as editors of "The Humanist", from which Kurtz departed in 1979