Cremation

[DHK]

What are your views on cremation?
I welcome any responses, although I am particularly interested in the RCC's position.

 

[lori4dogs]

I think cremation at one time seemed to be an attack on the Catholic Church's emphases on Jesus' resurrection, it was usually not accepted practice by Catholics except when health or safety were an issue. The key here is that it was not so much a doctrine that changed but a practice. I believe that it is now considered acceptable unless the practice is somehow a sign of disbelief in the resurrection of the body or rejection of Christian faith.

 

[Zenas]

What are your views on cremation?
I welcome any responses, although I am particularly interested in the RCC's position.

I have a personal hang up about cremation, although it is more of an emotional reaction than a response of reason. I want to buried, not cremated.

As far as the Catholic Church's position, I understand that they have traditionally opposed cremation. However, in recent years they have permitted it but they prefer that the cremation be done after the funeral. Also, they insist on burial of the cremated remains or placing them in a mausoleum. Scattering ashes or keeping them in an urn in your home for all to see is not considered the reverent kind of disposition the Church requires.

 

[lori4dogs]

More and more churches are putting in columbariums either inside or outside of their church building. It doesn't take the room that church cemeteries in times past required and they are relatively inexpensive to install. The Anglican Church I used to attend had one on the other side of the wall that the altar was attached. It costs very little to reserve a niche in the columbarium and made burial a lot more affordable for people.

 

[DHK]

Lori, you are right. I looked in the Catechism and it said, as you did:

I believe that it is now considered acceptable unless the practice is somehow a sign of disbelief in the resurrection of the body or rejection of Christian faith.

Zenas you are correct in saying that traditionally the RCC opposed it. I believe it is just recently that they began to accept it.

My mother died a year and a half ago and her funeral sounds like it could be written as part of a sinister plot in a spy novel or something like that. The priest is older, a traditionalist. Both my parents are devout Catholics, but practical and thrifty. They believe there is nothing wrong with cremation. The priest won't perform a mass without the body present in the casket.
The body is embalmed, and brought into the church for the satisfaction of the priest. The mass begins. After the mass is a reception for all in attendance. Meanwhile, while the reception is taking place my brother and father stealthily take the body (with the help of the funeral home of course) to the Crematorium, and have it cremated. When the reception is over the funeral procession to the cemetery takes place and all gather around the casket. The priest prays and gives his blessing all the while thinking that there is a body in that casket. Actually only the family knows differently. (No body--no funeral). But is there really a body? Not in this case. The casket was easily lowered down into the earth.

 

[Agnus_Dei]

The Orthodox Church herself forbids cremation, although what a person does after the funeral service I guess is their choice. I really never asked what would happen if someone wanted to be cremated. But obviously, if there's a natural disaster and cremation is needed for health reasons, then cremation is acceptable...

Even as a Baptist I was against cremation and I'd even take a step further...My wife and I don't want any funeral director squandering money from our family on a "proper" burial. A cheap burial here in Kansas and my home town in Tennessee, can easily run you well over $10,000!

When I die, my body will be released to my family and into a pine box I go and buried within 24 hours...I'm not being embalmed...I may have to have a liner for the hole (depending on the regulations of the cemetery)...I'm a veteran, so burial will be free (I believe) in a designated Government cemetery.

I just believe these funeral directors are a money making scheme that will over sell you services you really don't need...It's a US modern culture how we bury our dead.

In XC
-

 

[drfuss]

I have a personal hang up about cremation, although it is more of an emotional reaction than a response of reason. I want to buried, not cremated.

As far as the Catholic Church's position, I understand that they have traditionally opposed cremation. However, in recent years they have permitted it but they prefer that the cremation be done after the funeral. Also, they insist on burial of the cremated remains or placing them in a mausoleum. Scattering ashes or keeping them in an urn in your home for all to see is not considered the reverent kind of disposition the Church requires.

I attended a Catholic funeral this past year. The Priest placed the remains in a mausoleum (with the remains of many others) on the church property.

 

[BobRyan]

What are your views on cremation?
I welcome any responses, although I am particularly interested in the RCC's position.

I seem to recall something about the RCC of the dark ages burning heretics as a way to intimidate the masses by claiming that even if they were wrong in the curses they pronounced over their victims as they were burning - those victims could not be resurrected because their bodies were being destroyed and thus God would have nothing to resurrect.

History of Cremation

The Judaic roots of Christian tradition carried a long-standing prohibition of cremation as a reaction to equally long-standing attempts to annihilate Jewish existence and memory. Although cremation was a common practice among Greeks and Romans, at least for the very poor, Christians moved away from the practice out of:

• faith in the Resurrection of the body
• reverence for the body as a member of the Body of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit
• a strong reaction to persecutors' use of burning bodies as a taunt against belief in the Resurrection

The practice of the early Church was crystallized in the 1917 Code of Canon Law which strictly forbade cremation except when grave public necessity required rapid disposition of bodies, as in times of plague or natural disaster. The Church went so far as to deny Christian burial rites to anyone choosing cremation.
http://www.dotcc.org/cremation.asp#history

in Christ,

Bob