U
UbiCaritas
Guest
So, my father just died. We were estranged for a long time. He was a cradle Catholic, and I find myself in the process of trying to sort out funeral arrangements for him. My parents are extremely poor–like, well below the national poverty standard, live in a house that really ought to be condemned, and so on. No life insurance. Nothing.
As a result, my sisters and I are trying to get him a Catholic funeral and burial at a reasonable price (we’re none of us exactly wealthy ourselves), and frankly, the whole process has made me realize once more that it’s stuff like this that makes people leave the Church.
Example A: Cremation is permitted by the Church as long as it isn’t done out of disrespect for the body. We mean no disrespect in wanting him cremated; we simply find it rather hard to swallow that not cremating him means a literal 4x increase in the funeral home costs. (And yes, we’ve shopped around: this is the “cheap” funeral home in town.)
Despite this, and despite the fact that the diocese permits cremation prior to Mass, the priest is refusing Dad a public funeral Mass if we cremate him first because “he isn’t comfortable with it” and “it would create scandal.” Ergo, we have to pay a minimum of 3-4x as much as we’d otherwise pay, depending on whether we have him cremated or buried ahem whole afterwards, in order to have his funeral Mass said at his parish.
Mind you, that isn’t counting the fee for the plot at the Catholic cemetery. When I asked them about financial assistance (even with a cremation spot, the plot costs twice as much as the cremation!), I was cheerfully told that they offer a 10% discount as a public charity if the deceased dies in the month of November–All Souls, don’t you know! As Dad inconsiderately passed from this vale in one of the other 11 months of the year, we aren’t eligible for assistance.
(Yes, the bishop will be hearing about all this in a polite-and-courteous-but-firm letter once I’ve calmed down a bit.)
To top it all off, I can confidently expect that that payment of several thousand dollars to move the deceased’s body all of 5 miles (max) roundtrip will guarantee a nice long eulogy talk by the priest afterwards about how my parents are an example of a Good Catholic Couple. Hey, you can be a violent, abusive alcoholic who refuses to support your children, commits identity theft and tax fraud with their information, and generally does your best to ruin their lives, but so long as The Proprieties Are Followed, you too can be lauded as a wonderful example of Catholicism! I mean, drunk-driving with your kids in the car, beating them, and denying them an education is one thing; having the aforementioned abused kids not entirely thrilled about dropping large sums of cash to transport your body a short distance is another entirely.
At least, it seems, in the eyes of the Church.
No, I’m not leaving. Whether a good or a bad thing, I have too much faith in the Real Presence to leave. I don’t even know why, and maybe that’s partly what faith is: you don’t know or understand, you just believe in your heart for reasons you can’t explain. But if I didn’t have that faith, I’d be another very, very angry ex-Catholic right about now. It really does seem sometimes as though the Church has a very special way of kicking a person when they’re down.
As a result, my sisters and I are trying to get him a Catholic funeral and burial at a reasonable price (we’re none of us exactly wealthy ourselves), and frankly, the whole process has made me realize once more that it’s stuff like this that makes people leave the Church.
Example A: Cremation is permitted by the Church as long as it isn’t done out of disrespect for the body. We mean no disrespect in wanting him cremated; we simply find it rather hard to swallow that not cremating him means a literal 4x increase in the funeral home costs. (And yes, we’ve shopped around: this is the “cheap” funeral home in town.)
Despite this, and despite the fact that the diocese permits cremation prior to Mass, the priest is refusing Dad a public funeral Mass if we cremate him first because “he isn’t comfortable with it” and “it would create scandal.” Ergo, we have to pay a minimum of 3-4x as much as we’d otherwise pay, depending on whether we have him cremated or buried ahem whole afterwards, in order to have his funeral Mass said at his parish.
Mind you, that isn’t counting the fee for the plot at the Catholic cemetery. When I asked them about financial assistance (even with a cremation spot, the plot costs twice as much as the cremation!), I was cheerfully told that they offer a 10% discount as a public charity if the deceased dies in the month of November–All Souls, don’t you know! As Dad inconsiderately passed from this vale in one of the other 11 months of the year, we aren’t eligible for assistance.
(Yes, the bishop will be hearing about all this in a polite-and-courteous-but-firm letter once I’ve calmed down a bit.)
To top it all off, I can confidently expect that that payment of several thousand dollars to move the deceased’s body all of 5 miles (max) roundtrip will guarantee a nice long eulogy talk by the priest afterwards about how my parents are an example of a Good Catholic Couple. Hey, you can be a violent, abusive alcoholic who refuses to support your children, commits identity theft and tax fraud with their information, and generally does your best to ruin their lives, but so long as The Proprieties Are Followed, you too can be lauded as a wonderful example of Catholicism! I mean, drunk-driving with your kids in the car, beating them, and denying them an education is one thing; having the aforementioned abused kids not entirely thrilled about dropping large sums of cash to transport your body a short distance is another entirely.
At least, it seems, in the eyes of the Church.No, I’m not leaving. Whether a good or a bad thing, I have too much faith in the Real Presence to leave. I don’t even know why, and maybe that’s partly what faith is: you don’t know or understand, you just believe in your heart for reasons you can’t explain. But if I didn’t have that faith, I’d be another very, very angry ex-Catholic right about now. It really does seem sometimes as though the Church has a very special way of kicking a person when they’re down.
(You can persuade me that there are plenty of fees associated with cremation et all, but you haven’t a chance in…a very warm place…of persuading me that a $500-$600/mile transport fee is reasonable.) I am, however, disgusted by this priest’s attitude. His comment that it would cause, and I quote, “scandal” to say a public funeral Mass for someone just because his family has a hard time paying several thousand dollars in fees to transport the non-cremated remains is well beyond the pale.
I can’t do much about that. At this point, this whole mess is out of my hands, and I’m glad of it. I will be writing to the bishop when I can do so rationally.