Disposition of ashes

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Kielbasi said:
A colleague of mine was given the ashes from one of our homeless clients who passed on, several years ago.

Didn’t know what to do with them, I suggested she bury them at her new home in the country which she had just bought.

Would a local monastery been willing to accept them?
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Well, frankly this is central to the issue that the dioceses are going to have to confront in a more methodical way, as years pass.

I remember situations where I stepped in, because the office I held in the moment gave me the authority to do so, to provide a Catholic cemetery plot without charge to an indigent family who was Catholic. That sort of thing has always happened.

This, however, is on a different scale. It is one thing when, for example, a husband passes away and a wife retains the cremains – although the instruction addresses that scenario, which I expect will nevertheless continue to happen in some fashion or another, to some degree.

The instruction is especially looking at a situation in which, for example, the husband passes away and the wife retains the cremains…then the wife next passes away and one of the children becomes the custodian of these urns…and then the child passes away eventually and…

A person can end up with multiple generations – relatives they never even knew – eventually needing some final disposition.

Or, there is the situation of your colleague.

All else being equal, it is an extraordinary thing for a monastery to accommodate externs in their cemetery/vault. It exists for the Religious of that monastery with, perhaps, the occasional provision for lay people who had some truly extraordinary relationship with the monastery.

Some monasteries are making other provisions today but this is a new evolution in things.

The place to turn to, properly, would be the diocese since the diocese would be better situated with resources to cope with these non-attended cremains, especially in the situation you cite where there is no one in a position to procure a proper place of interment…be it by burial or in a columbarium. Ecclesiologically, the diocese is also the most proper place to turn. Everyone is under the shepherd’s care of a diocesan bishop…but only those who are part of the monastic family are properly under the care of the abbot/prior or the abbess/prioress.

There is a precedent in European history. We had confraternities whose corporal work of mercy concerned the burial of the dead. This sort of circumstance may become a benevolent aid society of the 21st/22nd centuries.

I pray for my young confreres. They will confront issues I not only never confronted, I am sure they will confront issues, as the years and decades pass, that I never even contemplated.
 
In my parish we have had people die who had no relatives and no one to pay for the burial. In those cases our parish pays for the cremation and we ask one of the other local parishes that has a columbarium to donate a niche. I don’t know how often this happens but I know of at least two instances in the last two years.

My mother died last year and was cremated. Because the place I used for the cremation was not a funeral home I was the one who had to pick up her ashes from the crematory. My pastor did not want me to keep her ashes in my house during the few days before her funeral so he provided a secure location in the sacristy.

Her ashes are inurned in a columbarium at a church close by (my parish doesn’t have a columbarium) and it is a lovely place, in view of the perpetual Adoration Chapel that has a large window overlooking the columbarium.
 
poche said:
Give them a Christian burial in sacred ground.
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Can we decide for ourselves what is sacred ground?

“…He buried [Moses] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.”. (Deuteronomy 34:6)
 
I didn’t realize that the policy changed? Because my parents, both who are Catholic, want their ashes scattered and I am absolutely going to follow their wishes. I wonder if they’ve just heard the news?
 
IamGroot said:
I didn’t realize that the policy changed? Because my parents, both who are Catholic, want their ashes scattered and I am absolutely going to follow their wishes. I wonder if they’ve just heard the news?
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The Church has never allowed scattering of ashes. In fact, up until around Vatican II, a Catholic couldn’t even be cremated. The Catechism and Canon Law are very clear - ashes cannot be scattered. This has been in the Church Law since 1983 when the Code of Canon Law was updated and promulgated by St. John Paul II.
 
SanctusMarcus said:
The Church has never allowed scattering of ashes. In fact, up until around Vatican II, a Catholic couldn’t even be cremated. The Catechism and Canon Law are very clear - ashes cannot be scattered. This has been in the Church Law since 1983 when the Code of Canon Law was updated and promulgated by St. John Paul II.
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Thanks I did not know this, but I do know a lot of Catholics who have had and wanted to have their ashes scattered.
 
If I read correctly your mother-in-law “HAS A GRAVESTONE” that is 700 miles away. If I were you, I would contact a funeral home located where the gravestone is (that is assuming the gravestone is in a cemetery) and ask if they could inter the ashes with the gravestone. 700 miles is only about a 14 hour drive. Make it a long weekend. Or ship them UPS. I do not think there are any laws/regulations saying you cannot ship ashes. This may be of interest: about.usps.com/publications/pub139.pdf
 
Don_Ruggero said:
You are most welcome. When in doubt, it is always best to check and double check. Especially a decision as definitive as something like this.

What a blessing that the monastery gives you the option of being interred there. I remember when that would have been counted an extraordinary privilege for a lay person.
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They only allow priests and I assume brothers to be buried in the cemetery area. There is separate spot where they allow cremains of the laity to be interred. This monastery is a blessing to our community in so many ways.
 
Lion_IRC said:
Can we decide for ourselves what is sacred ground?

“…He buried [Moses] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.”. (Deuteronomy 34:6)
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To the best of my knowledge sacred ground is ground that is blessed by a priest for the purpose of burial/interment. Many years ago Catholic Churches would have cemeteries of sacred ground. Now I believe the practices is for a priest to bless the gravesite when a loved one is laid to rest.

With the Catholic Church clarifying some of these issues, including that remains/cremains must be interred properly my guess is we can’t just decide for ourselves what is sacred ground. You should talk to your priest about it.
 
Just for general information, if a person is a veteran and is cremated, he may be interred in a Veteran’s Cemetery free of charge, as long as it can be proved they were a veteran. I was thinking of the poster who inquired about the homeless man–if he was a veteran and there are papers, this may be an option.

My friend, whose husband was a Deacon, could not afford a funeral with burial and he was cremated and then interred at the nearby Veteran’s Cemetery. They had a beautiful military service for him. She also will be able to be interred in the same vault when she passes.

Her Pastor came to the service and did the graveside ritual.
 
IamGroot said:
I didn’t realize that the policy changed? Because my parents, both who are Catholic, want their ashes scattered and I am absolutely going to follow their wishes. I wonder if they’ve just heard the news?
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If they intend to have their ashes scattered then the Church is not supposed to give them a funeral mass.
 
Lion_IRC said:
Can we decide for ourselves what is sacred ground?

“…He buried [Moses] in Moab, in the valley opposite Beth Peor, but to this day no one knows where his grave is.”. (Deuteronomy 34:6)
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Properly speaking, ecclesiastical authority would make that determination. As a previous poster pointed out, cemeteries for veterans exist; they are not Catholic, however the interment of Catholics there is certainly permitted by competent ecclesiastical authority.
 
IamGroot said:
I didn’t realize that the policy changed? Because my parents, both who are Catholic, want their ashes scattered and I am absolutely going to follow their wishes. I wonder if they’ve just heard the news?
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In fact, there really has been no change. This instruction, from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which included a consultation with the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments and the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legislative Texts, restates and reaffirms what is and has been normative. The Congregation found it needful to issue a new instruction, since the practice of cremation is growing more prominent and prevalent.

My advice to you would be to provide your parents with a copy of Ad Resurgendum cum Christo – it is a very short document of eight paragraphs, easily available on the internet – and then to have a discussion with them after they have had the chance to read and consider the instruction.

vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_con_cfaith_doc_20160815_ad-resurgendum-cum-christo_en.html

From there, then you can have a conversation with their parish priest or with a priest with whom you have a relationship of trust.
poche said:
If they intend to have their ashes scattered then the Church is not supposed to give them a funeral mass.
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The interpretation of any Vatican instruction must be done by competent ecclesiastical authority, who does so in light of what the text actually says, next accounting for how it formulates what it does say, and also taking into account what the text does not say.

Denial of ecclesiastical funerals is still governed by the Code of Canon Law, canon 1176-1185 – accounting also for any particular law, enacted by the diocesan bishop.

The instruction closed by essentially re-affirming one of the provisions in canon 1184:
8. When the deceased notoriously has requested cremation and the scattering of their ashes for reasons contrary to the Christian faith, a Christian funeral must be denied to that person according to the norms of the law.
As the Code says with regard to the application of the canons for the granting or denial of ecclesiastical funerals, If any doubt occurs, the local ordinary is to be consulted, and his judgment must be followed.
 
Don_Ruggero said:
Properly speaking, ecclesiastical authority would make that determination. As a previous poster pointed out, cemeteries for veterans exist; they are not Catholic, however the interment of Catholics there is certainly permitted by competent ecclesiastical authority.
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Could a person pray to the Holy Spirit asking that the ground be sanctified?
 
On a related note;

The bishop of New Orleans brought charges against someone when it was learned that they had buried one of their slaves in the garden of their home rather than in the consecrate ground of a cemetery.
 
Lion_IRC said:
Could a person pray to the Holy Spirit asking that the ground be sanctified?
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Blessings are generally not performed by lay people. There are a few exceptions but blessing the ground for burial (or inurnment) is not something a lay person would do.
 
Let us thank Pope Francis for reminding us of the respect due to human remains even in the form of ashes. The last act of a major production at the Metropolitan Opera in New York had to be canceled last Saturday when a man thew powder into the orchestra pit. A police examination proved that the substance was human remains. The man who did this was questioned, and it turns out that he was scattering the ashes of an opera buff friend of his in opera houses all over the country! When the general population has lost respect for the remains of the dead, anything can happen to them.
 
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