Bizarre, Religion

Catholic Church: Keeping Or Scattering Ashes Are “Not Allowed”

VaticanCoatofArms220px-us_navy_030501-n-6141b-022_officers__sailors_aboard_the_arleigh_burke_class_guided_missile_destroyer_uss_donald_cook_ddg_75In a surprise Vatican ruling for many Catholics, the Church has declared at Catholic are forbidden from keeping the ashes of cremated loved ones at home, scattering them, or dividing them between family members. This widespread practice has been deemed one of the “new ideas contrary to the church’s faith”.

Cardinal Gerhard Müller, the prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, declared “We come from the earth and we shall return to the earth. The church continues to incessantly recommend that the bodies of the dead be buried either in cemeteries or in other sacred ground.” As a former student of a high school preparatory seminary, and raised in a Catholic family, I am astonished by the declaration. Scattering ashes would seem that most direct way to “return to the Earth.”

Ashes must be kept “in a holy place, that is a cemetery or a church or in a place that has been specifically dedicated to this purpose. The conservation of ashes in the home is not allowed . . . Furthermore, in order to avoid any form of pantheistic or naturalistic or nihilistic misunderstanding, the dispersion of ashes in the air, on the ground, on water or in some other way as well as the conversion of cremated ashes into commemorative objects is not allowed.”

“Naturalistic”? I thought it was about returning ashes to the earth. That sounds vaguely naturalistic.

The Vatican document, Ad Resurgendum cum Christo, is dated 15 August and approved by Pope Francis.

60 thoughts on “Catholic Church: Keeping Or Scattering Ashes Are “Not Allowed””

  1. It’s amusing to see primitive beliefs about the nature of realty treated as “real” rather than the cultural hallucinations that they are.

    1. The village atheist invariably operates under the illusion that he is sophisticated.

    1. I recommend the classic “The American Way of Death” by Jessica Mitford. It’s all about the money.

      Not quite. Jessica Mitford had some non-pecuniary motives. Jessica Mitford had made one bad decision after another in her life and invested in vile and stupid causes. She needed to earn a living and attempt to redeem herself in her own mind if nowhere else, so she took to heckling undertakers. Cha-ching for Jessica.

      1. So..Stepon can recognize what might be greed and other of the 7 Deadly Sins in everyone else, but not in his Holy Roman Catholic Church. I would guess not in himself either, but I’ll give him the benefit of the doubt. Many have a blind eye regarding their chosen organized religion. He can say 5 Lord’s Prayer and 3 Hail Mary’s as his penance.

        1. Get back to me when you can correctly interpret three simple sentences.

    2. Autumn – read Evelyn Waugh’s ‘The Loved One.’ Your whole concept of how we treat the dead will change.

      1. Paul, thanks for posting that. I read that many moons ago in Honors English and always intended to revisit it as an adult. Thanks to you it is now top of my list! =)

        1. Autumn – Waugh is a great writer so just put everything he wrote on your list. If you haven’t read it it, you will enjoy the read. If you have. you will enjoy the revisit.

  4. Thanks, Karen. I know a lot on this topic. Working that case I summarized was one of the toughest I ever worked. The depravity of this predator priest shook me to my core.

  5. Well that’s just silly. Another interpretation that is not based on doctrine.

    Nick – nailed it!

    Jeff – Soylent Green completely freaked me out when I saw it many years ago.

  6. The Fat Boys in the Vatican trying
    desperately to justify their existence.
    They are incapable of addressing the real
    Problems facing society.
    Time for change.

  7. Good to see the Vatican is focused on important stuff. Having been raised in the Catholic Church, and also taught by Jesuits like others here, you are all missing the obvious point. The Catholic Church has lost BILLIONS of dollars paying settlements for their pedophile priests. With this edict, you now have to pay for a plot in a Catholic cemetery. Depending on the venue, plots range from ~$500-$2000. Come on you Catholics, we have all sat through sermons about how the Church needs money, and that predates the scandal. This is about money, nothing else!

    1. Good to see the Vatican is focused on important stuff.

      The Church isn’t a business. Respect for the dead in light of theological insights is the important stuff.

      The Catholic Church has lost BILLIONS of dollars paying settlements for their pedophile priests.

      No, problem dioceses have paid settlements to people who claim they were fondled (or worse) by priests. Some of the claimants are indubitably frauds climbing on the back of genuine claimants in bloc settlements. Most of the accusers weren’t prepubescent children. They were adolescents. Only a minority of the priests accused were serial offenders.

      1. Stepon, You are part of the problem, an apologist for a Church that allowed thousands of priests to prey upon children, mostly boys. The Church became the world’s most “respected” version of NAMBLA. I wonder if you’re not a priest? Probably just an enabler by nature. What makes me suspicious of you is the comment, “Most of the accusers weren’t prepubescent children. They were adolescents.” That is a fairly accurate statement. I would only change your “most” to “many.” You see, Stepon, the way the Church handled serial offenders were to put them into positions where they would be boinking young men, not boys. It was a policy.

        Stepon, I’m a PI. I work mostly insurance defense cases. Some of the early abuse claims were paid by insurance companies. That was until insurance companies learned the Church was uninsurable. I was hired by an attorney who was defending the archdiocese of a large city in the US. A priest was fondling young boys is a school. He went to the sanctuary in NM where he was assessed as incorrigible. Instead of kicking him out, the Church went w/ their plan. They sent him to a major university to get his doctorate, which would put him in a college setting as a professor. Then he would be screwing young men and it wouldn’t be statutory rape. Here’s the problem. While going to college, this predatory pedophile volunteered to help a local parish. He ended up raping both boys and girls, a bisexual pedophile. With him it was strictly about control, not sex. This case settled for 7 figures.

        Are there fraudulent claims against the Church. You bet. There is fraud in anything involving money. I’m a fraud investigator. This aforementioned case WAS NOT fraud. The vast majority of these cases are real. In my personal life I played high school football w/ a guy who was raped by his parish priest. That priest had many victims and went to prison. Too many priests and bishops have escaped the criminal justice system. Cardinal Law has sanctuary in the Vatican. He should be doing time.

        Finally, Stepon, are there people who hate the Catholic Church and have used this scandal to funnel their hatred? Yes. Is that what has propelled this scandal? NO! What has propelled this scandal is the truth coming from the countless victims. For every victim who has had the courage to come forward, there are many who have not. Some have committed suicide. The bitter irony being their suicides prevented them from being buried in the Church that raped them.

        1. Damn Nick. Your comment rocked me – with sadness and horror. I stay away from any news stories involving the abuse of children and animals. Still one hears all the time about clergy – and not just Catholic priests – taking advantage of children. My bro in law’s oldest son was molested by a priest. My Dad always said be wary of adults who work with kids – clergy, boy scout leaders, coaches, etc.

          1. Your dad was a wise man. And YES, abuse of children is not relegated to just Catholic priests by any means. The growth sector in sexually abusing children is in female teachers abusing male students. JT has had some posts on this.

          2. Autumn – let us not forget to fear teachers. For years principals would more suspect teachers from school to school. There are 100s in NY ‘rubber room’ who have never been given a hearing, but are still getting paid.

        2. Spinelli, I point out your characterization is sloppy and false in important respect. If it helps you feel better to say I’m part of the problem, go ahead. You’re still lying.

        1. For every accusation that was fraudulent, there are dozens, perhaps hundreds or more that were real but never reported.

          You’ve confused your imagination with observable reality. Pretty common in this sewer of a comment board.

  9. OK, I’ll be the first. Tough loss, but it ain’t over until it’s over.

  11. As an atheist, I don’t see the point. When you die, your dead, that’s it. What the living people want to do with your remains doesn’t matter. If they want to mix your ashes into concrete and make a brick out of you, so what? After cremation all that is left is a pile of minerals, no different than a pile of minerals I can cook up in the lab. This kind of silly dictate is one of the reasons I am anti-religious.

    Don’t get me wrong, I don’t want people just dumping dead bodies in ditches, that’s littering and unhygienic, but anything that is done with the body is for the benefit of the living, not the dead. How would the church feel about Soylent Green? I mean, after digestion, the remains are returned to the Earth. I guess they didn’t cover reprocessing waste in the movie, but I have to think that if they were processing people for food, they certainly were reprocessing waste for food. In the end, we will all be returned to the Earth in one way or another, so again, I don’t see the point.

    1. Please don’t describe yourself as NOT something. Define yourself by what you are – probably a kind, caring, compassionate person. If anyone inquires about your religion, you can say, “I’m a kind caring compassionate person. What are you? “

    2. “an make a brick out of you”

      Jeff

      Thank you sir. I have now finally figured out what to do with myself. I have always been a builder, architect, artist, artisan and now, after I am cremated, I will will my ashes to be used in some construction project-tbd. This way I will live on in the field(s) of my choice. Some ashes will go into concrete. Some ashes will go into glass. Some ashes will be mixed into paint. And some scattered to the wind. Before I go I am planning to develop a new field of ‘afterlife treatment’. For a modest fee, I will place the ashes of loved ones where they will be most appropriately remembered. Sue and Ralph might just end up in a CMU in the new addition to the local library. You too can live on forever, or at least for the duration of a building. Our ultimate package will be to have the loved one’s ashes made a part of a monument the likes of which will endure forever, for as long as that is. Imagine being part of the pedestal of a bronze of one of your heroes.

  12. TIN – I was offered the cafeteria style of sin by a Jesuit priest. His thesis was that you could not sin if you did not think it was wrong. So, if I did not think that fornication was wrong with a particular girl, it wasn’t a sin. It cleared up so much. 😉

  14. Religious rites are part of the Separation of Church and State theory and practice. What the Pope tells Catholics to do is limited to Catholics, has nothing to do with the rest of any of the nation states and their citizens and only those Catholics that wish to adhere – as long as it doesn’t violate the morals, values, standards, ethics and laws of the nation state. Closed subject. Useful for a Sarducci style skit.

  16. Having been taught by Jesuits, I fail to see why it would be heretical to scatter ashes or bury them. My understanding is that Catholics, and I am one, are against cremation because we believe in the resurrection of the body after death. That being said, my mother’s wishes superseded the wishes of the Church in my view and when she died, I carried out her desire to be cremated. She is in an urn, and is in my house, as I wish it. I may be a heretic, according to the Church’s recent ruling, but it’s unlikely I’ll be burnt at the stake any time soon. As long as I continue to accept the idea of God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost as one, then I’m pretty sure I’m in good standing with the main concept of the Catholic Church.

    1. Having been taught by Jesuits, I fail to see why it would be heretical to scatter ashes or bury them.

      Well, you should have had a Catholic education rather than one peddled by a crooked gnostic cult shot-through with sexual deviants.

    2. I was taught by Jesuits as well, and don’t recall anything about Catholic rites and beliefs being a sort of “cafeteria plan,” whereby you can select the ones you agree with and ignore the rest. That being said, I agree that burial in consecrated grounds is fundamental to the core Catholic belief in resurrection of the body. I also agree with Catechism which holds that nobody should ever be forgotten, and that every individual must have a permanent burial site where he/she is identified by name. I’ve known too many people who have a relative in an urn on the mantel, then in the closet, followed by a storage unit when they move, and eventually the urn is damaged or lost. It’s totally disrespectful.

      1. Tin,

        I agree. I would also add that visiting a grave takes effort. Effort well worth it too. Today’s society is all about narcissism and what is convenient for them. When I visit my mother’s grave, every time is precious and memorable.

      2. Two generations after a person is buried in a grave with a marker, NOBODY visits that grave because nobody knew the person who is buried there.

        1. In the old days, generations of people were all buried in the same place. There would be a connection to family, where kids would go to the cemetery with their parents and actually see the gravestones of their ancestors. We move all the time and lack that connection now.

          Tin – thanks. I had not seen much point in this ruling but you do make a good argument as to reasoning.

          It’s my opinion that the ruling is more about the respect paid to bodies than the actual pathway to heaven, although it’s admittedly been many years since CCD. Many people choose cremation for cost. It is becoming atrociously expensive to be buried. Or it’s symbolically freeing after suffering a long illness. Wouldn’t someone who’d died in a fire or be lost at sea still have eternal life? That’s the doctrinal sticking point for me. Consecrated ground granted respect for the dead, a rite, as well as kept bodies in a central location away from wells and waterways and elsewhere that would cause problems, which may have been one of the driving forces in its inception. Although suicides were banned from sacred ground, it was my understanding that it was their mortal sin, and not their location, that barred them from heaven, according to Catholic teaching. They were banned because the cemetery was reserved for those who died in grace. Who would ever sail a ship knowing that if the ship went down, none of them would go to heaven because they could not be buried in a Catholic cemetery?

          Here is an interesting mention of when cremation was allowed by the Catholic Church:
          http://www.semperaltius.com/catholic_burial_tradition.htm

        2. I disagree. There are a lot of people who are interested in their family’s history. This often leads to visits to the only tangible thing left of their life, excepting their other descendants, their grave site. Most of my visits are to those of people I have knows. But I have also visited the grave sites of various ancestors. There are websites that let us visit via the internet, and this can also lead to actual on-site visits once we know where to go.

          1. Have you done grave rubbings? It seems kind of weird, but they did that back East. There are some really old cemeteries with beautiful gravestone carvings. There is a connection with the people of the past when you visit an old cemetery, even if your ancestors are not interred there. But it is moving to find your own distant ancestors.

            1. Karen – I have two rubbings from S.E. Asia. Bought them at an estate sale.

  18. I agree, and this is part of why (having once taught in a Catholic school and being a Christian) the Catholicism has never appealed to me. The main message of the Bible seems to be to live by the golden rule, to treat each other as we would be treated, etc. (that is said, in one wording or another, over 2000 times in the Bible–as Jim Wallis has often pointed out). Questionable interpretations of things mentioned a few times don’t seem to overcome the main message, love your neighbor as you love yourself.

    1. So then it makes sense to follow the Golden Rule and give up the rest of the gobbled gook.

    1. Does Holy Mother Church also proscribe burial at sea?

      As for the Jesuits, I will leave their casuistry for others to debate.

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