Posted on 04/03/2012 11:25:20 AM PDT by marshmallow
Rome, Italy, Mar 30, 2012 / 01:44 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- The Catholic Church in Italy has issued new guidelines that rule out scattering the cremated remains of a person or the keeping them in an urn at home.
“Cremation is considered as concluded when the urn is deposited in the cemetery,” says the appendix to the new edition of Funeral Rites issued by Italian Episcopal Conference.
“The practice of spreading ashes in the wild or keeping them in places other than the cemetery,” it adds, “raises many concerns about its full consistency with the Christian faith, especially when they imply pantheistic or naturalist conceptions.”
The new book of Funeral Rites was published earlier this month and will come into force in parishes across Italy on Nov. 2, All Souls Day.
Official statistics suggest that around 10 percent of Italians who die are cremated. Since 2001 the Italian government has permitted ashes to be kept at homes in urns or to be scattered on land or sea.
In the lead-up to the new Funeral Rites being produced this month, there was some media speculation in Italy that the Church would also accept these practices under certain circumstances.
Traditionally, the Catholic Church permitted cremation only when grave public necessity required the rapid removal of bodies, such as in time of plague or natural disaster.
The concern of the Church was that the rejection of Christian burial could be viewed as a rejection of Christian belief in the resurrection of the body and immortality of the soul. Indeed, the use of cremation was championed from the 18th century Enlightenment onwards by many anti-Catholic movements such as the Freemasons.
(Excerpt) Read more at catholicnewsagency.com ...
Alternate headline: Church reiterates existing rules (that exist to ensure our actions do not undermine age-old doctrine about salvation and eternal life).
The way I figure it, if God is omnipotent, it shouldn’t be a problem for him to resurrect a body that has been cremated and scattered.
Most bodies end up being completely destroyed, even the bones, when left long enough. In certain types of soil, this process may only take a few years.
When they tried to dig up Cardinal Newman, all they found was a coffin plate and a few other inorganic materials...
The same rule applies in my diocese. Cremation is OK, but no scattering. Remains go into a blessed grave.
Please think to the logical conclusion before you stop thinking and begin responding. You are limiting God and His work of resurrection if you believe your "age-old doctrine".
Yes ... please do.
Before ASSuming that people believe things that they don't ... before launching on ASSinine lectures that are completely irrelevant ... before imputing false motives to other people or pretending to read their minds ...
One would be well advised to ASK an honest question or two ... and refrain from ASSuming that the answer given is deceptive.
Jus' sayin' ...
One might (gasp!) read the article. I realize that some people are incapable of reading ... but most of them are also incapable of typing on a computer based discussion forum.
“..raises many concerns about its full consistency with the Christian faith, especially when they imply pantheistic or naturalist conceptions..”
Sounds like the point is if you scatter ashes or keep them on the mantle, are you acting like a christian or something else?
E.g. If you want your ashes scattered in your hometown because you want to “return home”, such a belief isn’t quite consistent w/believing in the resurection, where your physical body is irrelevant.
Same goes for scattering in a park or something if you like the idea of being “with nature”. In that case, are you acting like a christian - or a druid?
Also, keeping your parents permanently on the mantle may be a bit akin to ancestor worship, which is not a christian tenet.
So I guess it sounds odd to non-catholics, but burying ashes does seem to be a bit more consistent with the faith.
**Catholics in Italy Told Ashes of Dead Cannot be Scattered**
This is correct. Ashes must be buried.
What they do with the bones is outrageous. I never saw this expose' on this subject again. I think the cremation industry bought it out of circulation.
They have no respect for the Body. Everyone thinks it is a nice clean burn then ashes. It is a lie from what I saw in this 90 minute program. This was the nineties on tv in N. Y. PBS.
Just remember you handing over your body to bunch of strangers. You can not tell if that is Aunt May's ashes or a total strangers, besides other things in the ashes. How about what they do to the bones in a dirty shop to grind. Just sick. At least what I saw it was about the whole industry. sick.
Your #5 makes no sense.
The Italian bishops and Catholic doctrine do not prohibit one from being a victim of muslim terrorists and being incinerated with ashes being strewn all over.
Cremation is not prohibited. Intentionally scattering ashes afterwards is what is prohibited.
The doctrine does NOT limit God, but rather the doctrine calls us not to deliberately scatter what God has promised to make whole and new, and calls us not to sentimentally unite a person with his favorite earthly park or sea by scattering him there. Those acts fly in the face of the promises God has made about what awaits us after death.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BHBaCZ3slis
Really? PBS? Not NPR or Mother Jones? /sarcasm
Just remember you handing over your body to bunch of strangers. You can not tell if that is Aunt May's ashes or a total strangers, besides other things in the ashes. How about what they do to the bones in a dirty shop to grind. Just sick. At least what I saw it was about the whole industry. sick.
And you are not handing over Aunt May over to strangers at the funeral home? Do you have any idea what happens during an embalming? Do you have any idea what eventually happens to the human body even after embalming?
The funeral/mortuary industry sells people the false and very expensive idea that if you purchase the upgraded coffin and the most expensive vault that the recently dead and now properly embalmed Aunt May will rest eternally looking just as good as she did in life or at least as good as she did during the viewing, after her bodily fluids are sucked out and replaced with toxic chemicals, her lips pumped with wax to keep them looking so plump and life like, her mouth sutured or wired shut, eye cups or cotton balls placed under her eye lids so she doesn’t have that, well sunken dead eye look. She’s also been washed down with strong disinfectants (not really a bad idea) but also sometime powders are or chemicals along the likes of Fabreeze to keep her already rotting corpse from smelling up the funeral parlor and freaking out the mourners.
I’m not trying to be harsh, but that is the reality. Embalming is at best only temporarily. Regardless of whether embalming is performed, the type of burial or entombment, and the materials used – such as wood or metal caskets and vaults – Aunt May will eventually decompose. Eventually she will be nothing but bones and dust and the sad rotted and tattered fragments of that nice flowered she loved so much.
Look at this video and this is not everything! No respect if you ask me.
I saw nothing offensive in that.
Is this any less offensive, clinical, industrial, commercial than this?
Or this:
Why, according to your church, can ashes be unintenionally scattered, but not intentionally scattered? I am interested in knowing why your church allows for one but not the other. And how they both apply to “the facts fly in the face of the promises God has made us about what awaits us after death”? What are those promises, according to the Catholic Church? Thank you for your reply.
You wrote:
“Why, according to your church, can ashes be unintenionally scattered, but not intentionally scattered?”
Why do you deliberately skew this? The Church does not say “ashes [can] be unintenionally scattered, but not intentionally scattered”. The Church simply recognizes the obvious - fires (caused by terrorists or any other cause) will consume bodies and scatter their ashes. The Church believes human remains are best treated with respect. Scattering a body is not respectful. Get it yet?
“I am interested in knowing why your church allows for one but not the other.”
I am interested in knowing how on earth you can use the word “allow” in that sentence. What “allow”? The Church did not “allow” 9/11. Nineteen scumbag Muslim terrorists made it happen.
To each his own. So you work for this industry. LOL!!
But more importantly, I am interested in knowing how on earth you can deduce from my post that I think the Church "allowed" 9/11. Where in the name of pete did THAT come from? I was speaking of people who were blown to pieces, or burn to ashes and scattered in the wind in the Twin Towers. Or ANYWHERE, for that matter. How you could turn that into "The Church did not allow 9/11" is beyond my scope of DUH responses. Seriously.
You wrote:
“I am interested in knowing why your church allows for one but not the other.”
And earlier, “Hopefully, there were no Catholics in the World Trade Centers on 9/11..../s”
You wrote it. You own it. Wear it with the usual anti-Catholic vainglory.
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