Final resting place: Vatican releases instruction on burial, cremation

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Cindy Wooden, Catholic News Service | Oct. 25, 2016

Professing belief in the resurrection of the dead and affirming that the human body is an essential part of a person's identity, the Catholic church insists that the bodies of the deceased be treated with respect and laid to rest in a consecrated place.

While the Catholic Church continues to prefer burial in the ground, it accepts cremation as an option, but forbids the scattering of ashes and the growing practice of keeping cremated remains at home, said Cardinal Gerhard Müller, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"Caring for the bodies of the deceased, the church confirms its faith in the resurrection and separates itself from attitudes and rites that see in death the definitive obliteration of the person, a stage in the process of reincarnation or the fusion of one's soul with the universe," the cardinal told reporters Oct. 25.

In 1963, the congregation issued an instruction permitting cremation as long as it was not done as a sign of denial of the basic Christian belief in the resurrection of the dead. The permission was incorporated into the Code of Canon Law in 1983 and the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches in 1990.

https://www.ncronline.org/news/vatican/final-resting-place-vatican-releases-instruction-burial-cremation

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1. My mom did not know that until very recently.

Last year my mom found out the church permits cremation after an aunt passed on. My aunt decided on a regular funeral with cremation afterwards. We had the final committal a week later. Mom asked the deacon who performed that service if Catholics could be cremated then and was surprised to learn that the church is OK with it now as long as the ashes are kept together and buried. This was even after the local Catholic cemeteries installed columbarium niches, she still thought the church was going on under the old rules.

Personally I've always seen cremation as doing what nature does to our mortal bodies anyways. Cremation is just speeding up the course of nature a bit. And nothing is impossible with God, if he wants to recreate our mortal bodies he can do so, regardless of what we humans do to the bodies after death.

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2. I like these two methods:

Asked specifically about the growing trend in his native Germany of "forest burials," where people pay to have their ashes in urns interred at the base of a tree in a designated forest burial ground, Müller said the German bishops were not thrilled with the idea, but accepted it with the proviso that the tree be marked with the name of the person buried at its base.

In the United States and other countries, a growing number of Catholic cemeteries set aside sections for "green burials" for bodies that have not been embalmed and are placed in simple wooden caskets that eventually will biodegrade along with the body.

They seem to be the most natural.

I read in another article why the Church opposes scattering the ashes. The reason is it suggests pantheism, that all is God. I suppose it's a reaction to the "We are star stuff" sentiment.

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3. IIRC What the deacon told my mom...

...is that part of the reason the church opposed it was that in the early church the victims of persecution had often been burned after death and had their ashes scattered, and that even after Christianity became the state religion of the Empire they opposed the scattering of ashes, seeing it as disrespectful to the deceased.

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4. That's interesting.

I'm glad the deacon was there to explain it. A funeral in many ways explains the Church's core teachings.

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5. Yeah I'm glad he did

I hope it put any doubts my mom might have had about my own arrangements to rest. I plan on being cremated myself when the time comes and I think my mom was uneasy about it due to the prohibition she grew up with. I'm going to have what my aunt who died last year did, wake at the funeral home, service at church the next day, cremation, then burial later.

As for burial it depends - if I get married and have my own family I'll get a separate plot for myself and my wife. If not my mom and dad have said I can be buried with them when the time comes. My aunt who died last year was buried with my grandparents.

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6. If I remember right, you started law school.

Remember, keep your burial wishes with your will but not in your will.

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7. Yes I did.

I'm two months in now.

Thanks for the tip.

My mom and my siblings all know my plans.