[little jeremiah]

Thought you might like this.

I'll ping one or both lists tomorrow.

Yay, Italy!

[pbear8]

The priest refused a Christian burial to an unrepentant sinner, not just any old sinner.

[Investment Biker]

We were in Florence this year and went to early mass in the duomo. In this great church mass was said at the side alter. There were about 120 people in attendance in a great church that holds thousands. About 1/2 were tourists. There is little church attendance in Europe these days. So the priest may have deny a funeral to parishioners that have never been to Sunday mass also.

[ppaul]

The liberal and secular Left is increasingly alarmed by the return to “Catholic values” in politics and everyday life...

Horror of horrors!!!

[k2blader]

“She lived with her lover, so she was a public sinner,” Father Mazzotta said.

Everyone, including this priest, is a public sinner.

So does he believe she's in hell?

[ZULU]

"Father Antonio Sciortino, the Editor of Famiglia Cristiana, a popular Catholic magazine, accused Father Mazzotta of “excessive zeal”.

Obviously asophomoric political correct hack.

Sorry the lady is dead, but if you belong to an organization, you follow the rules or take your membership elsewhere.

And living with a person outside of marriage should not be encouraged or condoned by any Christian Church.

The fruits of such unions fill our jails, prisons, psychiatric wards and welfare roles.

[Straight Vermonter]

When New England crime boss Raymond Patriarca died in the 80s Bishop Gelineau refused to bury him so I guess this is not unprecedented.

[topher]

Ping

[NYer]

“I decided not to celebrate an official Mass for this woman, who was not in communion with the Church.”

[markomalley]

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Father Mazzotta said that his action carried a message: “Marriage is a sacrament. We cannot simply pretend.”

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• The woman chose to live outside of the teachings of both Scripture and Tradition. It is extraordinarily easy to be married in the Catholic Church. She is one of a growing number of people in Europe who simply have decided to live their lives without the complication of the Church. If she chose to live her life in that fashion, then her decisions in life should be honored in her death, as well.
• The woman did not repent of her actions before she died. I see no indication that she requested absolution or extreme unction before her death. So, as was pointed out, she was an "unrepentant public sinner." Any analogy between her and the adulterous woman in the Gospels is moot for that reason itself.
• The bottom line is that actions have consequences.

It is hoped, unless they repent of their actions before they die, that many high-profile "Catholic" (cough-cough) politicians who have taken scandalous positions (Kerry, Kennedy, Pelosi, Mikulski, etc.), will be afforded similar honors as this woman upon their passing. Unfortunately, I am not so pollyanish to assume that the USCCB will have as much chutzpah as this parish priest.

[Aquinasfan]

The liberal and secular Left is increasingly alarmed by the return to “Catholic values” in politics and everyday life

Imitation of Christ, bad.

[caver]

I got a question for anybody. Is there really a "growing power of conservative Catholicism in Italy."? I'm surprised by that statement.

[dfwgator]

"The Cafeteria is Closed" bump.

[WhiteGuy]

I guess the family didn't pay the expected tribute.......

or

this is PR spin

[Salvation]

Hmmmm.

[Salvation]

Here's what I found:

ARTICLE 2
CHRISTIAN FUNERALS

All the sacraments, and principally those of Christian initiation, have as their goal the last Passover of the child of God which, through death, leads him into the life of the Kingdom. Then what he confessed in faith and hope will be fulfilled: "I look for the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come."¹⁸⁴

I. THE CHRISTIAN'S LAST PASSOVER

The Christian meaning of death is revealed in the light of the Paschal mystery of the death and resurrection of Christ in whom resides our only hope. The Christian who dies in Christ Jesus is "away from the body and at home with the Lord."¹⁸⁵

1682 For the Christian the day of death inaugurates, at the end of his sacramental life, the fulfillment of his new birth begun at Baptism, the definitive "conformity" to "the image of the Son" conferred by the anointing of the Holy Spirit, and participation in the feast of the Kingdom which was anticipated in the Eucharist- even if final purifications are still necessary for him in order to be clothed with the nuptial garment.

The Church who, as Mother, has borne the Christian sacramentally in her womb during his earthly pilgrimage, accompanies him at his journey's end, in order to surrender him "into the Father's hands." She offers to the Father, in Christ, the child of his grace, and she commits to the earth, in hope, the seed of the body that will rise in glory.¹⁸⁶ This offering is fully celebrated in the Eucharistic sacrifice; the blessings before and after Mass are sacramentals.

II. THE CELEBRATION OF FUNERALS

1684 The Christian funeral is a liturgical celebration of the Church. The ministry of the Church in this instance aims at expressing efficacious communion with the deceased, at the participation in that communion of the community gathered for the funeral, and at the proclamation of eternal life to the community.

1685 The different funeral rites express the Paschal character of Christian death and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as to the color of the liturgical vestments worn.¹⁸⁷

1686 The Order of Christian Funerals (Ordo exsequiarum) of the Roman liturgy gives three types of funeral celebrations, corresponding to the three places in which they are conducted (the home, the church, and the cemetery), and according to the importance attached to them by the family, local customs, the culture, and popular piety. This order of celebration is common to all the liturgical traditions and comprises four principal elements:

1687 The greeting of the community. A greeting of faith begins the celebration. Relatives and friends of the deceased are welcomed with a word of "consolation" (in the New Testament sense of the Holy Spirit's power in hope).¹⁸⁸ The community assembling in prayer also awaits the "words of eternal life." The death of a member of the community (or the anniversary of a death, or the seventh or thirtieth day after death) is an event that should lead beyond the perspectives of "this world" and should draw the faithful into the true perspective of faith in the risen Christ.

1688 The liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very careful preparation because the assembly present for the funeral may include some faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. The homily in particular must "avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy"¹⁸⁹ and illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.

The Eucharistic Sacrifice. When the celebration takes place in church the Eucharist is the heart of the Paschal reality of Christian death.¹⁹⁰ In the Eucharist, the Church expresses her efficacious communion with the departed: offering to the Father in the Holy Spirit the sacrifice of the death and resurrection of Christ, she asks to purify his child of his sins and their consequences, and to admit him to the Paschal fullness of the table of the Kingdom.¹⁹¹ It is by the Eucharist thus celebrated that the community of the faithful, especially the family of the deceased, learn to live in communion with the one who "has fallen asleep in the Lord," by communicating in the Body of Christ of which he is a living member and, then, by praying for him and with him.

A farewell to the deceased is his final "commendation to God" by the Church. It is "the last farewell by which the Christian community greets one of its members before his body is brought to its tomb."¹⁹² The Byzantine tradition expresses this by the kiss of farewell to the deceased:

By this final greeting "we sing for his departure from this life and separation from us, but also because there is a communion and a reunion. For even dead, we are not at all separated from one another, because we all run the same course and we will find one another again in the same place. We shall never be separated, for we live for Christ, and now we are united with Christ as we go toward him . . . we shall all be together in Christ."¹⁹³

---

184 Niceno-Constantinopolitan Creed.
185 2 Cor 5:8.
186 Cf. 1 Cor 15:42-44.
187 Cf. SC 81.
188 Cf. 1 Thess 4:18.
189 OCF 41.
190 Cf. OCF 41.
191 Cf. 57.
192 OCF 10.
193 St. Simeon of Thessalonica, De ordine sepulturæ. 336:PG 155,684.

[Salvation]

I realize there are some repeats in here -- Search for funeral:

1684 The Christian funeral is a liturgical celebration of the Church. The ministry of the Church in this instance aims at expressing efficacious communion with the deceased, at the participation in that communion of the community gathered for the funeral, and at the proclamation of eternal life to the community.

---

 

1685 The different funeral rites express the Paschal character of Christian death and are in keeping with the situations and traditions of each region, even as to the color of the liturgical vestments worn.

---

 

1688 The liturgy of the Word during funerals demands very careful preparation because the assembly present for the funeral may include some faithful who rarely attend the liturgy, and friends of the deceased who are not Christians. The homily in particular must "avoid the literary genre of funeral eulogy" and illumine the mystery of Christian death in the light of the risen Christ.

---

 

1686 The Order of Christian Funerals (Ordo exsequiarum) of the Roman liturgy gives three types of funeral celebrations, corresponding to the three places in which they are conducted (the home, the church, and the cemetery), and according to the importance attached to them by the family, local customs, the culture, and popular piety. This order of celebration is common to all the liturgical traditions and comprises four principal elements:

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1261 As regards children who have died without Baptism, the Church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them. Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children which caused him to say: "Let the children come to me, do not hinder them," allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism. All the more urgent is the Church's call not to prevent little children coming to Christ through the gift of holy Baptism.

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335 In her liturgy, the Church joins with the angels to adore the thrice-holy God. She invokes their assistance (in the funeral liturgy's In Paradisum deducant te angeli. . .["May the angels lead you into Paradise. . ."]). Moreover, in the "Cherubic Hymn" of the Byzantine Liturgy, she celebrates the memory of certain angels more particularly (St. Michael, St. Gabriel, St. Raphael, and the guardian angels).

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[HitmanLV]

To be fair, if sinning disqualifies a person from a Catholic funeral, I don't think any of us Catholics would qualify for one...

[sassbox]

In theory I agree with the priest in this situation. To hold a public church funeral for a woman who openly lived in sin with a married man and showed no signs of repentence would be very inappropriate. The problem with this kind of sanction is that it seems very arbitrary and inconsistent. Many people will see it as the big bad Church picking on some poor woman who died of cancer at a young age, while church funerals are allowed for other manifest sinners, especially the rich and powerful (e.g. various Kennedys) This causes scandal as well. The problem lies in the fact that the decision about whether or not to hold a funeral is made by the local priest and bishop. Unfortunately many priests and bishops will never do what this priest did. They are too spineless or simply do not believe the Church's teachings on sin and the afterlife. Thus you have inconsistency throughout the Church. To people who are not Catholic or who are poorly formed in their Catholic faith, this is very confusing. The message that the Church intends to send when it denies a funeral to a public sinner is lost and in the end the Church just looks mean-spirited and hypocritical.

[HighlyOpinionated]

Praise the Lord, we have a Catholic Priest with backbone willing to defend Church teaching instead of trying to avoid it.

God Bless You, Father Giuseppe Mazzotta!

Pace e Bene.