The Catholic Church prefers burial to cremation, but where a body is cremated, the ashes must be treated with the same respect that is given to the remains of a dead person, said the head of the National Centre for Liturgy in Maynooth.
Fr Paddy Jones told ciNews that funeral rites are all adapted from a Latin book that contains the norms governing burial in the Church, however, as with marriage, the rites may be adapted from country to country.
The Church prefers to have the body buried in the ground, said Fr Jones, but it is also sensitive to the desire many people have to be cremated themselves or to have the body of a loved one cremated.
“Cremation is acceptable except where there is a denial of the resurrection of the body."
However, he said that the ashes of a cremated body should be treated with the same respect accorded to a dead body and should be buried in a grave or columbariu’ (a special repository for ashes in larger graveyards).
Unfortunately, he said, with cremation there was always a danger that people might forget about the ashes.
“I’ve heard stories of ashes being left on a mantelpiece, or being distributed among relatives. This is inappropriate.”
Fr Jones recalled an episode where an undertaker in Carlow complained to him that the relatives of a deceased person had forgotten to collect the ashes and he was left with them.
“You must treat ashes with the same respect you give to the body of a deceased,” said Fr Jones.
In Italy, a new edition of guidelines for funeral rites has reiterated the Church’s preference for burial over cremation, and has outlawed in particular the scattering of ashes.
While civil law allows ashes to be scattered in the open or kept in a place other than a cemetery, "such practices … raise considerable doubts as to their coherence to Christian faith, especially when they conceal pantheist or naturalistic beliefs," says the recently produced new version of Funeral Rites.
The norm is that burial of a casket or coffin is preferred.
Msgr. Angelo Lameri of the National Liturgical Office of the Italian Episcopal Conference explained that its expression of, “faith in the resurrection of the flesh nourishes the piety of the faithful and favours the recollection and prayer of relatives and friends.”