When I die, do not cremate me!

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I get all that, and agree with it, but my loved ones know that what I want, is what brings them the most comfort at the time. The funeral stuff is mostly for them. I do want a Mass, and they know that, and I will have readings chosen, and music suggested. My family is very sensible when it comes to spending.
 
That’s sad.

That time of having the deceased at home is a precious time for me – a time to begin to come to terms with absence, a time when they’re both still with us and not with us any longer.

I like being able to “drop by” every time I feel the need and spend a while in the room, saying a short prayer with someone else or on my own, having small gestures of affection for the body, blessing it with holy water, praying a rosary, or just sitting a moment in silence.

I find the presence of that body which already starts to decay oddly comforting. It tells me, better than anything else, that the soul I love has gone elsewhere, and that what we are going to bury is not the whole of my loved one, but simply their temporarily empty “shell”.

We wouldn’t do it for someone who died of an infectious disease, though.
 
One of my favorite movies centers around a somewhat lapsed Catholic father who was grieving his son and decided to finish ‘The Way’ to Santiago de Compostela that his son was in the process of doing at the time of his death.

During the movie, the father, who is played by Martin Sheen, spreads his son’s ashes among various spots along ‘The Way’.

While realizing the movie, ‘The Way’ is fictional, would the Catholic Church consider this kind of spreadIng of ashes Ok since it is a pilgrimage walk or is it still against Church teaching? Just curious.
 
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We have also funeral homes with a private viewing, and we can see our dead all the day and night until he goes to the coffin. Embalding dead too. The bodies that are exposed are not refregirated but the room is not warm.

Home vigil for our deads are still legal but confidential, and the thanatopractors have to be vigilent and to lobby discretly but frequently to not this practice become illegal.

All the deads had to be put in a coffin. That’s a legal obligation.

Honestly I can’t imagine to have a funeral in a church with a body only wrap in a shroud. Apart from the odor and the hygiene, the dead person’s shape can be shown more than in a coffin, and it can be impressive for the more sensible person. Would they will dare to touch the shroud as if it was a coffin? The use of coffin is a very long european tradition.

Coffins are usually in wood, a natural material. yes many are varnish and it is not ecological.
In the old historical times (well at least before the industrialization), deads were kept at home and eve, but were buried the day after their death.
It is only a recent thing to bury after 5 or more days.
catholiclala said:
I would prefer a green burial as well. I did not even know about this until recently. I was always a bit put off by the artificial practices of the modern funeral industry. We are organic material, let our bodies do what they do naturally. It seems the most dignified and Catholic way to do it. It’s also cheaper.
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We have until recently green graveyards in France too. Their is no tomb stone, as it is the custom in France. But it is not cheaper than the average, it is the same. And we cannot bury a family in the same last home, the tombs are individual as they are only digs in the earth with no concrete. And family cannot bring flower to the tomb. The two parameters are something to balance before making a choice.

But I completely agree that we don’t need to be bury in a Cadillac. Burials can be simple, beautiful and more natural.
 
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OddBird said:
We wouldn’t do it for someone who died of an infectious disease, though.
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If I am correct you live in Switzerland, but you speak of your family who is in France?

Yes, that’s true there are restrictions for people who die from an infectious disease (whereas it is the coronavirus or HIV or hepatitis) for the body post mortal care and vigil at home.
 
Anicette said:
Yes, that’s true there are restrictions for people who die from an infectious disease (whereas it is the coronavirus or HIV or hepatitis) for the body post mortal care and vigil at home.
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Yet we probably took a risk, without being aware of it, when my granddad passed away last January. We asked for him to be brought home and everyone took part in the wake, including elderly family members and visiting friends, and my 93yo grandmother.

He’d died from a mysterious disease three weeks after he entered the local nursing home – fever, tiredness, dry cough, lungs clogging up…

Yeah. People weren’t talking about coronavirus in France yet, and we realized later. Nobody was infected, thanks be to God.
 
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I am happy that nobody had been infected!

That’s true that in January, nobody care of the coronavirus. All I know is that a friend who work in a car factory was out of work because they can’t receive the parts that they assemble as the Chinese factory had stopped his activity because of the coronavirus!

If this vigil was allowed it was because they believed that there was no risk. You have done nothing wrong.
 
Canon law
3. The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the deceased be observed;
nevertheless, the Church does not outright prohibit cremation unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine.
And if one does in fact go against the Church’s “earnest recomendation” and is cremated, then scattering the ashes of the deceased is forbidden.

2016 -
the Vatican responded to what it called an “unstoppable increase” in cremations
and issued guidelines barring the scattering of ashes “in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way.”
The new guidelines were approved this year by Pope Francis.

“We are facing a new challenge for the evangelization of death,” Cardinal Müller said at a news conference on Tuesday, discussing the centrality of death and resurrection for Christians. He emphasized the church’s “doctrinal and pastoral reasons” for burial, which it “continues to insistently recommend.”

Cardinal Müller added: “We believe in the resurrection of the body, so burial is the normal form for the Christian faithful, especially Catholics, whom we are addressing with this document.”
 
This in no way supports the idea that cremation is only allowed in time of calamity or for public health concerns.
 
My own choices would be:
  • Be used on a bodyfarm
  • Be used in anatomy class
  • Be granulated and have a surfacace burial so I could be of immediate use for the wildlife and plants.
  • When the time comes, wander out in the wild and stay there.
 
You haven’t backed up your claim “Cremation for a Catholic is only legit in times of war or famine or some other calamity where the bodies are piling up and becoming a public health concern.”

The language you use is a far cry from “earnestly recommends”. Stop asserting things that are blatantly false.
 
It’s okay, Mark of Rome. That was old Church practice. Last in canon law of the 1700’s as I recall. I clarified current law w a follow up post.
Yes, as I posted, the Church today . . . certainly . . . recommends burial over cremation.
 
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There you go again. The Church doesn’t “insistently recommend” burial over cremation. Earnestly and insistently are not the same. A Catholic may choose cremation over burial as long as it is not done for reasons contrary to Christian teachings. End of story.
 
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