Cremation and the Catholic Church

Catholic Cremation is a subject that has received much debate and attention.  Many Catholic churches still discourage cremation, those that do allow it, will most likely have certain stipulations to be met.  Interestingly the Bible has the words “ashes to ashes, dust to dust”, which many people take to mean that cremation is condoned by the scriptures.  Being that 18% of our body is constituted from carbon (the second highest component after water), a cremation fits the notion of ‘ashes to ashes’.

In Catholic belief, the soul leaves the body at death, only to be reunited at the end of time.  The body is seen as a ‘holy temple’ to be preserved, and for a long time Catholics believed that the soul could not be resurrected if the body had been cremated.

In 1963 the Vatican approved cremation, although they still would not allow cremated remains to be in attendance at a mass in church.   

By 1997 the Vatican were revising a new liturgical stance allowing cremated remains to be present at a mass, and the remains to be treated with the same reverence of a body in a casket.  For this reason, there are still stipulations about the cremation urns that some churches will accept for a mass.

However, the Catholic Church still considers that scattering cremated remains is not acceptable, and keeping ashes in an urn at home is also forbidden.  Cremated remains should be buried in a cemetery or crypt, just as a body would be.

This means that cremation is an option now for Catholics, albeit with some stipulations.

Being that traditional church funeral masses can become elaborate and expensive, the acceptance of cremation within the Catholic Church, has offered a much more affordable, yet still dignified and holy, alternative to many Catholics.