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Norseman82
Guest
The reason is the Catholic belief in the resurrection of the body. Making jewelry out of the ashes of the deceased is a disrespect to that (not to mention creepy, but that is besides the point).
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stuartbrianhenlis
Guest
Thank you, Crocus!
I’ll call my parish and see if I can rejoin.
I’ll call my parish and see if I can rejoin.
Mark121359
Well-known member
On a recent episode of Web of Faith with Fr. John Trigilio and Fr. Ken Brighenti on EWTN, they were talking about cremation. Fr. Brighenti mentioned that it was currently in vogue for some to keep ashes of their loved ones in jewelry/pendants. Him and Fr. Trigilio both agreed that this was pagan.
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AlbMagno
Guest
By that reasoning, the relics of Saints that you keep home can also be mistreated by your grandchildren, even more so considering that they aren’t of a relative.
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AlbMagno
Guest
Does it have pagan precedence? I don’t like the practice either, but for it the be pagan it has to be practiced by pagans before…
Our local Catholic cemetery addressed this issue recently:
https://www.lincolndiocese.org/news/diocesan-news/12911-cremated-remains-laid-to-rest
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Naga
Guest
Correct about relics in general. However, this discussion is about the corporeal remains (i.e. first class relics), which the Church discourages individuals from keeping.
@MockSock The Jimmy Akin explanation I mentioned previously can be found here: This should start at ~11:26
@MockSock The Jimmy Akin explanation I mentioned previously can be found here: This should start at ~11:26
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AlbMagno
Guest
Yes, I knew that, I only say that the reasoning that Akin uses to justify it (ashes will be mistreated in home but Saint’s relics won’t) isn’t necessarily right.
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Crocus
Guest
That is absolutely wonderful! What a beautiful, compassionate gesture. I will bring this up at next parish pastoral council and see where it goes. Thank you. :hugs:
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1Lord1Faith
Guest
In Catholic lore, scandal and scrupulosity are thought to be separated by a line so thin that no one could possibly find it. I think you’ve found it.
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Mintaka
Guest
This is a complicated issue, which involves a lot of theology. And it’s made more complicated because people used to “just know” what was right and wrong about this.
I mean, this is like explaining to a kid why it would be wrong to feed your little sister manure sprinkled with cocoa and tell her that it’s brownies. It might seem perfectly reasonable to a kid, who wasn’t super-clear on the concept of brownies. Brown, soft, chocolate – no problem, right? Such a thing wouldn’t even occur to an adult, because his ideas about food would be fully formed; so it would be hard to come up with an explanation that would cover all the bases. You’d be better off getting another kid to explain it.
The important thing is this: Jesus did not die and rise to save only our souls. He came to save our bodies also. Body and soul, we are transformed into the Body of Christ when we are baptized. The life of Christ in our bodies and souls is fed by the Eucharist. When we die, our souls go to Heaven/Purgatory or Hell, while our bodies rest. But when we are resurrected, our bodies and souls will be joined back together forever – with our bodies remade by Christ for eternal joy, or by our sins for eternal separation from God.
The reason saints’ relics can heal and be associated with other miracles is that the saints’ bodies are more fully transformed into Christ’s Body. In fact, many many Fathers and theologians say that you cannot count relics as parts of dead bodies; they are live bodies, living and acting in the world. And that’s why there used to be a Feast of the Holy Relics on the calendar in many countries. (November 5, in case you wondered.)
Most of us are not that far along in the process of becoming Christlike when we die, so our bodies are sacred but not as sacred as relics. Any human remains deserve respect, as part of natural respect for humans as being made in God’s image and likeness. But the remains of baptized Christians (or catechumens, or so on) are only to be buried in holy ground around a church, or kept inside a church or chapel or consecrated cemetery (which also are holy ground, of course).
If you have a stately manor with a consecrated chapel, it’s okay to keep Uncle Bob on a shelf in your consecrated chapel, because he is one of the Christian dead and that is holy ground. But you can’t keep Uncle Bob on a shelf in your unconsecrated bedroom or around your neck, because that isn’t holy ground.
If you have a saint’s relic, you ought to treat it with the same respect you would show to the living saint, because that saint is partly living with you. But St. Bob isn’t really dead, so you don’t have to keep his body, or any parts of it, on holy ground. (He is the holy ground, in a sense.)
If you truly and actually don’t know any better, then it’s not a sin.
Given that (till recently) cremation was only done in the West out of disrespect for the Resurrection and a hope of never coming back, it is hard to understand why the Church giving grudging permission for cremation has turned so quickly into such strangeness. I guess the moral of the story is that if nobody teaches what’s right, people really do act like sheep without a shepherd.
I mean, this is like explaining to a kid why it would be wrong to feed your little sister manure sprinkled with cocoa and tell her that it’s brownies. It might seem perfectly reasonable to a kid, who wasn’t super-clear on the concept of brownies. Brown, soft, chocolate – no problem, right? Such a thing wouldn’t even occur to an adult, because his ideas about food would be fully formed; so it would be hard to come up with an explanation that would cover all the bases. You’d be better off getting another kid to explain it.
The important thing is this: Jesus did not die and rise to save only our souls. He came to save our bodies also. Body and soul, we are transformed into the Body of Christ when we are baptized. The life of Christ in our bodies and souls is fed by the Eucharist. When we die, our souls go to Heaven/Purgatory or Hell, while our bodies rest. But when we are resurrected, our bodies and souls will be joined back together forever – with our bodies remade by Christ for eternal joy, or by our sins for eternal separation from God.
The reason saints’ relics can heal and be associated with other miracles is that the saints’ bodies are more fully transformed into Christ’s Body. In fact, many many Fathers and theologians say that you cannot count relics as parts of dead bodies; they are live bodies, living and acting in the world. And that’s why there used to be a Feast of the Holy Relics on the calendar in many countries. (November 5, in case you wondered.)
Most of us are not that far along in the process of becoming Christlike when we die, so our bodies are sacred but not as sacred as relics. Any human remains deserve respect, as part of natural respect for humans as being made in God’s image and likeness. But the remains of baptized Christians (or catechumens, or so on) are only to be buried in holy ground around a church, or kept inside a church or chapel or consecrated cemetery (which also are holy ground, of course).
If you have a stately manor with a consecrated chapel, it’s okay to keep Uncle Bob on a shelf in your consecrated chapel, because he is one of the Christian dead and that is holy ground. But you can’t keep Uncle Bob on a shelf in your unconsecrated bedroom or around your neck, because that isn’t holy ground.
If you have a saint’s relic, you ought to treat it with the same respect you would show to the living saint, because that saint is partly living with you. But St. Bob isn’t really dead, so you don’t have to keep his body, or any parts of it, on holy ground. (He is the holy ground, in a sense.)
If you truly and actually don’t know any better, then it’s not a sin.
Given that (till recently) cremation was only done in the West out of disrespect for the Resurrection and a hope of never coming back, it is hard to understand why the Church giving grudging permission for cremation has turned so quickly into such strangeness. I guess the moral of the story is that if nobody teaches what’s right, people really do act like sheep without a shepherd.
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TheLittleLady
Guest
Catechism
2301 Autopsies can be morally permitted for legal inquests or scientific research. The free gift of organs after death is legitimate and can be meritorious.
2301 Autopsies can be morally permitted for legal inquests or scientific research. The free gift of organs after death is legitimate and can be meritorious.
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Mintaka
Guest
Autopsies and scientific dissection are okay, because they are done to help the living, and to advance the investigation of Creation. We worship Truth Himself, after all. (And btw, the medieval universities did allow dissection in the medical schools, such as in Bologna.)
(Bl. Nicholas Steno, bishop, evangelist, and geologist, was also a famous anatomist who discovered lots of body parts by doing human dissections.)
But you generally have to bury bodies in a cemetery, or cremate the remains and bury them or put them in a columbarium respectfully, after dissection or an autopsy. Our local medical school has a beautiful little cemetery for anybody who donated their cadaver and didn’t ask to be put somewhere else; it’s right next to the pioneer cemetery that was already there, and everyone’s name and location is listed.
(I think I read somewhere that some Catholic universities had consecrated areas for keeping medical specimens preserved in jars, but I don’t remember anything about it.)
(Bl. Nicholas Steno, bishop, evangelist, and geologist, was also a famous anatomist who discovered lots of body parts by doing human dissections.)
But you generally have to bury bodies in a cemetery, or cremate the remains and bury them or put them in a columbarium respectfully, after dissection or an autopsy. Our local medical school has a beautiful little cemetery for anybody who donated their cadaver and didn’t ask to be put somewhere else; it’s right next to the pioneer cemetery that was already there, and everyone’s name and location is listed.
(I think I read somewhere that some Catholic universities had consecrated areas for keeping medical specimens preserved in jars, but I don’t remember anything about it.)
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Mintaka
Guest
The other thing to remember is that, until recently, being buried in holy ground was part of dying reconciled with the Church, and not someone who hated Jesus and the Church.
Being buried outside of holy ground, by unhappy circumstance, was a reason for the dead to visit the living and ask to have their bodies recovered.
Being buried outside of holy ground on purpose was only done to the unrepentant excommunicated people, to notorious and unrepentant sinners, to people who rejected Christianity, and to suicides who adamantly rejected life and God. To await the Resurrection in a lonely forgotten place, instead of in a hallowed place of prayers and fellow believers, was one of the great horrors that haunted people and made them want to repent their sins.
And to be left unburied on purpose (by bandits or wicked kings) was to be treated worse than an animal.
Jewish people have similar beliefs about the need to bury the dead respectfully. Both Christians and Jews have historically risked their lives to recover bodies from disrespectful exposure, and then to bury the dead. Many of the martyrs died for this reason; and in the books of Tobit and Esther, burying the dead is heroic and necessary, even if they are unknown people who were probably pagan. God blesses those who bury the dead. (And it’s one of the corporal acts of mercy.)
I’m a little hot about this, at present, because there’s a terrible situation going on in my own family with someone old enough to have learned better. The person mistreating the ashes doesn’t live close enough for me to do anything except by influence, which I guess I don’t have. I seriously don’t understand why they don’t just go one block over and talk to their parish priest about how to store ashes better, much less why they aren’t following the wishes of the dead to be interred in a plot that’s there for the purpose. People don’t write wills and make funeral plans just to have them ignored. So creepy.
Being buried outside of holy ground, by unhappy circumstance, was a reason for the dead to visit the living and ask to have their bodies recovered.
Being buried outside of holy ground on purpose was only done to the unrepentant excommunicated people, to notorious and unrepentant sinners, to people who rejected Christianity, and to suicides who adamantly rejected life and God. To await the Resurrection in a lonely forgotten place, instead of in a hallowed place of prayers and fellow believers, was one of the great horrors that haunted people and made them want to repent their sins.
And to be left unburied on purpose (by bandits or wicked kings) was to be treated worse than an animal.
Jewish people have similar beliefs about the need to bury the dead respectfully. Both Christians and Jews have historically risked their lives to recover bodies from disrespectful exposure, and then to bury the dead. Many of the martyrs died for this reason; and in the books of Tobit and Esther, burying the dead is heroic and necessary, even if they are unknown people who were probably pagan. God blesses those who bury the dead. (And it’s one of the corporal acts of mercy.)
I’m a little hot about this, at present, because there’s a terrible situation going on in my own family with someone old enough to have learned better. The person mistreating the ashes doesn’t live close enough for me to do anything except by influence, which I guess I don’t have. I seriously don’t understand why they don’t just go one block over and talk to their parish priest about how to store ashes better, much less why they aren’t following the wishes of the dead to be interred in a plot that’s there for the purpose. People don’t write wills and make funeral plans just to have them ignored. So creepy.
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BiologyBrain
Guest
The way I think of it is like this…would you be wearing that person’s finger or other body part as a remembrance of them? I hope the answer is no, so that translates to the ashes too because, although no longer visibly that person’s body parts, is in actuality that person’s body parts.
Relics have a holy purpose and are not recommended for personal possession (1st class relics=body parts) for this reason. That’s also a reason most reliquaries are inlaid with precious metals and stones to give the Saint proper honor for their body. Each reliquary is actually more like a consecrated burial plot. The reason they are allowed to be ‘portable’ is to enhance the ability of those from further distances to be affected by the Holy remains—spiritually as well as physically.
Relics have a holy purpose and are not recommended for personal possession (1st class relics=body parts) for this reason. That’s also a reason most reliquaries are inlaid with precious metals and stones to give the Saint proper honor for their body. Each reliquary is actually more like a consecrated burial plot. The reason they are allowed to be ‘portable’ is to enhance the ability of those from further distances to be affected by the Holy remains—spiritually as well as physically.
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TheLittleLady
Guest
So is most of the household dust that I sweep up or vacuum away, dander from the skin of all of the people who have been there, dermis shedding and hair.
The proper disposal of cremains is to give witness to the resurrection of the body. Yes, God can raise people where there are no ashes to inter or body to bury, the symbolism is what is important. This is a practice, not a doctrine, so the Holy Father could say tomorrow that scattering of ashes is okay.
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BiologyBrain
Guest
Skin cells are much different than what is essentially burnt & crushed body parts—cremains. Skins cells naturally shed and, like bacteria, are ubiquitous and basically unavoidable. Having these skin cells around us as dust, is nothing like purposefully carrying around or collecting them as a remembrance of someone. Carrying about a dead loved one’s skin cells would be weird too.
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TheLittleLady
Guest
I have a locket of my late grandmother’s hair. Hair as a keepsake is very common.
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maryjk
Guest
A friend of mine has a fingerprint.
At the funeral home, they took a finger print. There is a company that transferred it to a pendant.
And she wears it around her neck.
At the funeral home, they took a finger print. There is a company that transferred it to a pendant.
And she wears it around her neck.
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strita
Guest
The Church teaches that cemeteries are sacred groud where the bodily resurrection will take place. Therefore, out of respect for the faith and the deceased, it is recommended that even cremated remains should be buried, although it is permissible to make use of a columbarium.
Shooting the remains into space or having them pressurized into a diamond, etc. are clever but disrespecting for the sacredness of each person.
I say all of this from something I heard Fr Mitch Pacwa say on EWTN TV, if I remember corerectly.
Shooting the remains into space or having them pressurized into a diamond, etc. are clever but disrespecting for the sacredness of each person.
I say all of this from something I heard Fr Mitch Pacwa say on EWTN TV, if I remember corerectly.
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