Vatican clarifies cremation rules

[rosethorne]

Both of my late loses were cremated.

My husband is catholic, so the babies also had a funeral  mass.

Because of a VERY long sordid history of abuse of the native people in this area, the churches are very careful to not overstep cultural boundaries, when dictating the rules for times like this. They, gently, informed us that cremation was perfectly okay, but that the church (Vatican) was quite insistent that the ashes stayed together.

So our compromise was that when the ashes of the  dead were taken out to sea, as my culture insists upon, instead of scattering them we just put the whole (tiny) urn(s) into the water. It was a good compromise, as the church has rituals and practices in place for burial at sea, and as far as they were concerned, the (intact) urn was the same a body for their purposes.

So my family got to lay the ashes to rest in the ocean as our ancestors required, and his family got the comfort of being able to abide by church law regarding the laying of remains.

 

*Slightly OT but somewhat related*

What truly surprised me, even in my grief, was that they allowed (actually encouraged) services for a stillborn child. Until that point, I was laboring under the, incorrect, assumption that the church still considered stillborn children as unclean souls that went to purgatory. The priest disabused me of the notion, and was more than happy to do a funeral mass to help with closure for my husband and his family.

Indeed, my husbands grandfather lives very close to an Abby in MA, where he attends mass when he's well enough. He is incredibly devout. He pays a stipend to the monks to have them say mass in honor of my lost daughter and son, also a set of ident. twins I miscarried at 10wks.

It's a very different church, while still being eerily familiar, than when I was in high school.

 

Nonetheless, I'm quite happy being a unashamedly pagan kitchen witch. The RCC has to many moral gray areas for my taste.

[smittykins]

@rosethorne, I am so sorry for your losses. *HUGS*

[rosethorne]

2 hours ago, smittykins said:

@rosethorne, I am so sorry for your losses. *HUGS*

*hugs*

Thank you for your kind words.

The only recent interaction I've had with the RCC re: cremation rules has been through my losses; so I chose to speak though I'm often wary of speaking about my losses in open forums, as many people find the topic uncomfortable. 

I do find the RCC rules and guidelines fascinating though, which annoys my husband who's a self-proclaimed "cafeteria catholic" which as I understand his definition, means that he picks and chooses what he likes and ignores the rest. So I'll bring up some rule/guideline/prohibition and he'll just roll his eyes or shrug it off.

We have a running family joke that the priest likes me better than him, because while dating and going through pre-cana I dragged him to Mass regularly and made it a point to help him follow church guidelines and dietary restrictions.

My feelings (at the time) were that since my faith is so important to me, his must be as well and I needed to support him in it.

After a couple years, I finally realized that he wasn't as...devout...as I was and I didn't need to try so hard.