Regarding various matters raised in your letters: there is nothing in the Teachings to prevent a Bahá’í from willing his body for medical research after death. However, it should be made clear that the remains must be buried eventually and not cremated, as this is according to Bahá’í law.
He was very sorry to hear of the prolonged inharmony in the ... Bahá’í community.... Some of the ... believers, from letters and reports received here, seem to lack a firm grounding on such matters as the Will and Testament and the deeper spiritual teachings of the Faith. Whenever the grasp of these fundamentals is weak, the friends are almost sure to pay undue attention to secondary procedures, to quibble over details, to lose themselves in personalities, and to founder in a sea of unnecessary inharmony. This has nothing to do with their devotion, their loyalty, their zeal, their eagerness to serve. It is merely a question of not having received, perhaps through lack of sufficient teachers to carry on the all-important work of deepening the friends in their own faith, a strong enough education in the Covenant before the duties and responsibilities of the Administrative Order were thrust upon them.
He has the greatest confidence in the abilities, and the loyalty and devotion of the Canadian friends. They have proved themselves over and over again, and distinguished their community through acts of great sacrifice, vision, courage and devotion. He hopes that, during the coming year, your Assembly will be able to send out more teachers, to assist the friends in grasping the fundamentals of the Faith, in uniting them, and stimulating their desire to do more in the teaching field. If the supply of teachers is limited in Canada—and the area to be covered is certainly vast!—perhaps your Sister Assembly in the United States can help through lending visiting teachers.
He assures all the members of the National Assembly of his loving prayers for the success of your indefatigable labours.
With warm Bahá’í love,
R. RABBANI.
P.S.—As regards the question about a person who is mentally ill attending the Feasts, anybody who is well enough mentally to attend a Bahá’í Feast and understand what it is all about is certainly well enough to be a voting member. Only people who are very seriously deranged mentally and confined to institutions or under constant supervision should be deprived of their voting rights.
BAHÁ’Í MARRIAGE LAW
Regarding your question of applying the sanction of suspension of voting rights to people who marry without the consent of parents, this should be done from now on. The law of the Aqdas is explicit and not open to any ambiguity at all. As long as the parents are alive, the consent must be obtained; it is not conditioned on their relationship to their children. If the whereabouts of the parents is not known legally, in other words, if they are legally dead, then it is not necessary for the children to obtain their consent, obviously. It is not a question of the child not knowing the present whereabouts of its parents, it is a question of a legal thing—if the parents are alive, they must be asked.