Is it appropriate to crash funerals?

[Langert]

What is the Church’s attitude about attending funerals? I’m not referring to attending the service of a family member or someone one knows either as a friend or business association, but someone who is a complete stranger. Are there graces bestowed? Are there privacy issues?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

I assume you are referring to the public funeral service and not to private gatherings such as a wake. Generally speaking, anyone who wishes to attend a funeral for a just reason is allowed to attend because religious services ordinarily are intended to be open to all. Note the clause about “just reason.” While it is not an altogether common phenomenon, some have been known to attend funerals purely to satisfy their own voyeuristic curiosity – particularly when the deceased was a public figure – rather than to show respect for and to assist in burying the dead. If the motives are just, it can be meritorious to attend the public funeral service for a stranger because it is a corporal work of mercy to bury the dead. But those who go either to satisfy curiosity or to make a spectacle of themselves will have already received their reward
(cf. Matt. 6:1-6).