John
08-20-2010, 04:12 PM
Mourners at the funeral of three children believed to have been killed by their mother have been asked to say a "quiet prayer" for the accused woman.
Bishop Peter Moran told friends and relatives: "God is the only one who knows and can see into her troubled heart.
Theresa Riggi is still receiving treatment in hospital after apparently falling from a second-floor balcony.
She has been charged with the murder of her eight-year-old twin sons, Austin and Luke Riggi, and her five-year-old daughter, Cecilia.
The children's bodies were found in the 46-year-old's house in Slateford Road, Edinburgh, on August 4 following reports of a suspected gas explosion.
"Everybody is very shocked and distressed by the deaths of these three children," Bishop Moran said, during the service at St Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen,
"I'm particularly distressed because they worshipped here. In fact the twins made their first Communion here just in the spring of this year."
Around 200 people turned out to pay their respects as the three coffins were driven from the city centre cathedral to the nearby crematorium following the Roman Catholic Mass.
Bishop Moran had led the 90-minute service, during which he said: "When we think of the children themselves we trust in God, we ask Him to take them into His care and take them home. And all the more so because they are so young and innocent."
The children's father, Pasquale Riggi, was among the last to enter the cathedral after the bells tolled shortly before 11am.
Bishop Moran said: "The unthinkable has happened, and the unbearable has to be borne.
"We are here, family, friends, work colleagues, clergy, because we don't want Pasquale, his parents and his parents-in-law to carry that burden alone, to suffer alone in their terrible loss."
Mr Riggi's sister, Lillian Mancinelli, and her husband, Joe, were among three people to pay tribute to the children during the service.
Flowers covered the three wooden coffins - each bearing the names of the children - as they were later carried to waiting hearses.
They were not from the mourners though - with the family instead requesting donations be made to the Reverend Gordon Trust Orphan Fund.
Mr Riggi, a Shell employee from Colorado in the US, moved to the UK with his wife, from California, 13 years ago.
The couple, who lived in Suffolk and the Netherlands before moving to Aberdeen in February 2007, had separated and begun divorce proceedings.
Source - Yahoo News.
Bishop Peter Moran told friends and relatives: "God is the only one who knows and can see into her troubled heart.
Theresa Riggi is still receiving treatment in hospital after apparently falling from a second-floor balcony.
She has been charged with the murder of her eight-year-old twin sons, Austin and Luke Riggi, and her five-year-old daughter, Cecilia.
The children's bodies were found in the 46-year-old's house in Slateford Road, Edinburgh, on August 4 following reports of a suspected gas explosion.
"Everybody is very shocked and distressed by the deaths of these three children," Bishop Moran said, during the service at St Mary's Cathedral in Aberdeen,
"I'm particularly distressed because they worshipped here. In fact the twins made their first Communion here just in the spring of this year."
Around 200 people turned out to pay their respects as the three coffins were driven from the city centre cathedral to the nearby crematorium following the Roman Catholic Mass.
Bishop Moran had led the 90-minute service, during which he said: "When we think of the children themselves we trust in God, we ask Him to take them into His care and take them home. And all the more so because they are so young and innocent."
The children's father, Pasquale Riggi, was among the last to enter the cathedral after the bells tolled shortly before 11am.
Bishop Moran said: "The unthinkable has happened, and the unbearable has to be borne.
"We are here, family, friends, work colleagues, clergy, because we don't want Pasquale, his parents and his parents-in-law to carry that burden alone, to suffer alone in their terrible loss."
Mr Riggi's sister, Lillian Mancinelli, and her husband, Joe, were among three people to pay tribute to the children during the service.
Flowers covered the three wooden coffins - each bearing the names of the children - as they were later carried to waiting hearses.
They were not from the mourners though - with the family instead requesting donations be made to the Reverend Gordon Trust Orphan Fund.
Mr Riggi, a Shell employee from Colorado in the US, moved to the UK with his wife, from California, 13 years ago.
The couple, who lived in Suffolk and the Netherlands before moving to Aberdeen in February 2007, had separated and begun divorce proceedings.
Source - Yahoo News.