Funeral Questions

[kereso]

Hi, I had a few questions regarding Catholic funerals and burial customs and google was letting me down.

Do all the pall bearers at a Catholic funeral mass need to be Catholic?

What disqualifies someone from have a Catholic funeral mass if they were baptized Catholics?

Do you have to be Catholic to be buried in a Catholic graveyard? If so, can you get a dispensation? Like if a Jewish woman wanted to be buried next to her Catholic husband, could they both be buried in a Catholic graveyard?

Is the funeral different if it’s the funeral of a deacon or an alter boy?

I am also looking for a funeral missal/outline (what happens when, what gets said, what people should do) online somewhere if anyone has a good link.

Thank you.

 

[EasterJoy]

Our archdiocese has a written set of funeral policies:
archdpdx.org/liturgy/funeral-policies.pdf

You might check to see if yours has something similar.

A bishop’s desire to respect the life choices of the dead is one reason a family who wanted Catholic rites and internment for a non-Catholic family member could get turned down. I don’t know what other prohibitions exist, but if your Jewish wife (or you, if you’re the Jewish wife) would like a Catholic funeral and to be buried in a Catholic cemetery, she needs to make that quite clear before she dies. Likewise anyone who seems to have repudiated the Catholic Church before death. The Church does not want anyone interred in a Catholic cemetery to be kicking the dirt back up onto them, not even figuratively speaking.

 

[Thomas63116]

Hi! Welcome to CAF. These are good questions, and I don’t know the particular answers to most of them. A good place to look, however, is the Code of Canon Law, which is avaialble on the Vatican website:

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/_INDEX.HTM

Canons 1176-1185 deal with the Church’s funeral rites and may be of particular interest.

Also Canons 1240-1243 deal with the Cemeteries, and may be of interest as well.

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4L.HTM

 

[Thomas63116]

To address a few of your questions more directly:

Do all the pall bearers at a Catholic funeral mass need to be Catholic?

I don’t believe so, but I don’t have a source for that.

What disqualifies someone from have a Catholic funeral mass if they were baptized Catholics?

Canon 1183 and 1184 address those to whom ecclesiattical funerals must be granted and denied

vatican.va/archive/ENG1104/__P4C.HTM

Do you have to be Catholic to be buried in a Catholic graveyard? If so, can you get a dispensation? Like if a Jewish woman wanted to be buried next to her Catholic husband, could they both be buried in a Catholic graveyard?

As noted by another poster, most Dioceses have their own policies governing these issues.

 

[kereso]

Wow, you guys are fast. Thank you very much.

EasterJoy: I’m neither the Jewish wife or Catholic husband, I’m the poor college student who is peer reviewing a story in which this takes place. I’ve never even been to a funeral, so I’m doing research in hopes of knowing what I’m talking about on Friday. (Sadly, I don’t think my writer did any research at all.)

Also, what is a pall?

Thomas63116: Thank you for all the references! So basically, as long as they aren’t running around saying the Catholic Church is evil, the Church will bury any one who was baptized Catholic?

 

[mercygate]

A pall is the big “blanket” that is draped over the coffin for Mass. Nowadays it is usually white but it has formerly been black or violet.

Anyway: your local Catholic parish could give you all your answers in one stop shopping.

 

[Phemie]

Wow, you guys are fast. Thank you very much.

EasterJoy: I’m neither the Jewish wife or Catholic husband, I’m the poor college student who is peer reviewing a story in which this takes place. I’ve never even been to a funeral, so I’m doing research in hopes of knowing what I’m talking about on Friday. (Sadly, I don’t think my writer did any research at all.)

Also, what is a pall?

Thomas63116: Thank you for all the references! So basically, as long as they aren’t running around saying the Catholic Church is evil, the Church will bury any one who was baptized Catholic?

In a word, yes. Unless it would give great scandal, i.e. a noted mobster. I seem to recall the Church refusing funeral rites to such a person not too long ago.

A pall is a white cloth, symbol of Baptism, put on the coffin after it comes into the church. At that time everything else is supposed to be taken off the coffin (flags, flowers, etc).

While they may choose not to allow a funeral for a non-Catholic, most parishes will allow the non-Catholic spouse to be buried in the Catholic cemetery. Our own parish did just that a few months ago. The funeral was celebrated from the Anglican Church, the deceased’s parish, then she was buried next to her husband in our cemetery. It was understood at the time of his burial that she would be placed next to him when the time came. The family then makes sure they have a double plot.

 

[rpp]

Hi, I had a few questions regarding Catholic funerals and burial customs and google was letting me down.

Do all the pall bearers at a Catholic funeral mass need to be Catholic?

Not generally, no.

What disqualifies someone from have a Catholic funeral mass if they were baptized Catholics?

Generally publicly renouncing the faith or being a serious and unrepentant public sinner. But even these restrictions are becoming more rare these days.

Do you have to be Catholic to be buried in a Catholic graveyard? If so, can you get a dispensation? Like if a Jewish woman wanted to be buried next to her Catholic husband, could they both be buried in a Catholic graveyard?

In the past, this would not be permitted. However, this is generally not a problem anymore and getting a dispensation is routine.

Is the funeral different if it’s the funeral of a deacon or an alter boy?

Nope,. everyone gets the same funeral Mass. The Mass may be more ornate or formal depending on who the person is and how much people are willing to spend, but it will be the same readings, the same prayers, the same essential elements.

I am also looking for a funeral missal/outline (what happens when, what gets said, what people should do) online somewhere if anyone has a good link.

Thank you.

I cannot find an online missal for the Ordinary Form of the Mass (The Mass of Pope Paul VI, sometimes referred to as the Novus Ordo Mass), but I was able to find an online missal for for the Traditional Latin Mass (Extraordinary Form). There are some notable differences

The Ordinary of the Mass
mysite.verizon.net/missale/order.html

The Mass of the Dead
mysite.verizon.net/missale/requiem.html

I will try to look for the other online missal for you.

 

[Thomas63116]

You noted that your purpose in doing this research is to review a peice of literature for its realism (I assume fiction, but I suppose it it could be (auto)biographical or semi-biographical).

Therefore, it may be important to point out that the resources we have been directing you to reflect the Church’s current regulations regarding funerals. If the story you are reviewing is set in an earlier historical time (especially 1960’s or earlier) the rules and customs would have been quite different from today.

 

[lak611]

I just e-mailed the Catholic cemetery association in my diocese asking when they first permitted non-Catholics to be buried in Catholic cemeteries. I would post their answer if and when I receive it.

 

[benedictgal]

Although the funeral Mass is the same, in essence, there are different prayers (collects) said and readings proclaimed depending on the deceased. For example, you will not expect your beloved Grandmother to get the same Opening Prayer (collect) and readings at her funeral Mass as Pope John Paul II did during his. For priests, it has been the custom to place the stole, paten and chalice atop the pall. For the pope, as was the case for both Popes Paul VI and John Paul II, the Book of the Gospels was placed atop their caskets.

You do not have to be Catholic to serve as a pall bearer. When my mother died, my uncles (her brothers) who had left the Church, served as her pallbearers, but, I laid down the law with them and told them not to receive Holy Communion since they were still in schism.

Yes, Phemie is right. There was a case in Italy where the Church denied burial to a reputed mobster on the grounds of the deceased having been a public sinner. But, one must check Canon Law to see what grounds apply.

 

[snhs]

Is the funeral different if it’s the funeral of a deacon or an alter boy?

There wouldn’t be any difference in the order of the Mass. Although for a Deacon you would probably expect more clergy than at most i.e. Deacons and Priests who knew him from Seminary etc., it might also be concelebrated. If it were an Altar boy’s funeral the only difference might be more servers from the Parish attending the Funeral and probably serving the Mass itself. It’s more or less along the same lines as coworkers/classmates attending the Funeral of a friend.

The coffin of a Priest is also placed in a different direction to a layperson (a Priest would be positioned with his head towards the Altar while a layperson would have his feet towards the Altar). I’m not sure what happens with a Deacon though.

 

[stbruno]

cathcemchgo.org/faq.php

Here’s a faq page from our local Catholic cemeteries. It answers many of the questions you posed.

 

[lak611]

Regarding the burial of non-Catholic spouses and family members in a Catholic cemetery, it was always done in the Catholic cemeteries in the Diocese of Cleveland. Here is the e-mail I received from a staff member.

Dear Laura,

Thank you for your interesting inquiry regarding the burial history of
non-Catholice within CCA, (Catholic Cemeteries Association),
cemeteries. Since St. John Cemetery on Woodland Avenue first openned in
1850, non-Catholics were permitted burial given that they had Catholic
family members or relatives already buried therein. Since then, as new
cemetery lands have been added to the CCA, each new section has been
consecrated. Consecration makes the cemetery a suitable and appropriate
location for the final disposition of Catholics’ remains, according to
the Catholic Rite of Burial. Unbaptized babies, people of mixed
religious marriages and non-practicing Catholics are all allowed burial.

I hope this information proves useful to your research, please continue
to consider our staff at your service.

 

[ThuribleGuy45]

There wouldn’t be any difference in the order of the Mass. Although for a Deacon you would probably expect more clergy than at most i.e. Deacons and Priests who knew him from Seminary etc., it might also be concelebrated. If it were an Altar boy’s funeral the only difference might be more servers from the Parish attending the Funeral and probably serving the Mass itself. It’s more or less along the same lines as coworkers/classmates attending the Funeral of a friend.

The coffin of a Priest is also placed in a different direction to a layperson (a Priest would be positioned with his head towards the Altar while a layperson would have his feet towards the Altar). I’m not sure what happens with a Deacon though.

And I believe for a bishop, priest, or deacon, the Book of the Gospels is placed on the coffin during the funeral Mass.

 

[Chatter163]

Frequently the stole of a cleric is placed in top of the palled casket. For a deacon, that would mean that the stole is placed crossways, deaconwise.