For our purposes here, Ad resurgendum cum Christo\u00a0<\/i>reiterates the long held view that the Church is not opposed to the practice of cremation (canons\u00a01176.3 and 1184.1 no.2 refer to burial and cremation).<\/p>\n
Our theology is rooted in the body. It is a\u00a0theology and an anthropology based in revelation and sacramentality of Christian Initiation (baptism, confirmation and Eucharist) integrating total person \u2013body, soul, and spirit\u2013 as the subject\u00a0as the center and locus of salvation in Christ Jesus.<\/p>\n
The most eye-grabbing part of the instruction for many is the re-iteration of the\u00a0prohibition on the scattering of ashes following\u00a0the Mass of Christian Burial.<\/p>\n Ad resurgendum cum Christo<\/i> teaches:<\/p>\n She [the church] cannot, therefore, condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death, such as considering death as the definitive annihilation of the person, or the moment of fusion with Mother Nature or the universe, or as a stage in the cycle of regeneration, or as the definitive liberation from the \u201cprison\u201d of the body. (no. 3)<\/p>\n Hence, we can understand the author meaning by\u00a0\u201cfusion with Mother Nature or the universe\u201d as the practices people do in disposing of the ashes of the beloved:\u00a0the scattering of their ashes over particular lands, mountains, or waters. \u00a0The Church reminds us that it\u00a0is\u00a0strictly prohibited to\u00a0divide the ashes among family or their reservation in a home, although culturally sensitive exceptions allowing domestic repose of cremains are left open to the local ordinary, presuming \u201cagreement with the Episcopal Conference or Synod of Bishops of the Oriental Churches\u201d (no. 6).\u00a0Additionally, we faithful Catholics do not accept philosophies that speaks to\u00a0\u201cpantheism, naturalism, or nihilism.\u201d It is taught that\u00a0the ashes cannot be \u201cpreserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry, or other objects\u201d (no. 7).<\/p>\n You ought to read the document because I bet that many will not realize that the burial of the body or deposition of the ashes\u00a0in consecrated ground\u00a0is matter of doctrine. Our disposition of the\u00a0ashes in a sacred place keeps departed from being forgotten or their remains from being shown a lack of respect.<\/p>\n \u201cThe faithful departed remain part of the Church who believes \u201cin the communion of all the faithful of Christ, those who are pilgrims on earth, the dead who are being purified, and the blessed in heaven, all together forming one Church\u201d AND The reservation of the ashes of the departed in a sacred place ensures that they are not excluded from the prayers and remembrance of their family or the Christian community. It prevents the faithful departed from being forgotten, or their remains from being shown a lack of respect, which eventuality is possible, most especially once the immediately subsequent generation has too passed away. Also it prevents any unfitting or superstitious practices\u201d (no. 5).<\/p>\n Catholics believe\u00a0in the resurrection of the flesh as fundamental\u00a0point of received theology and therefore, in death, the body is not incidental unimportant and nor is it\u00a0trash. Ours is a personal religion holding to the point that what we do with the body matters. No person is anonymous and the burial or disposition\u00a0of ashes in a way that rejects the history of a person (the name, the person, the \u00a0identity of the person) is contrary to common Catholic practice and belief. Belong to the\u00a0communion of saints through grace.\u00a0God created each person\u00a0and calls each person\u00a0to Himself at the time of \u00a0death.<\/p>\n Anyone working in a parish these days will acknowledge the difficulties in working Catholics today in the face of culture; the \u201cunchurched\u201d or those labelled as \u201cnones\u201d are rapidly becoming a problem due to a lack of education, a desire to really know and understand the teachings of Divine Revelation and the Church. The unchurched allow socio-economic-political priorities and personal\u00a0mores to trump truth. Try speaking with a grieving person (or a pre-grieving person) about the church\u2019s scriptural, doctrinal, and sacramental\/ritual reasons for requiring that the corpse or cremains be present for the wake and funeral mass and that cremains be finally placed\u00a0in a cemetery or columbarium… and you will see the problems at hand and vitriol heaped on a pastoral minister. I have had to try to convince\u00a0\u00a0daily-Mass Catholics to bury the ashes placing Mom\u00a0on the mantlepiece in their living room or a closet or giving half the ashes to a friend. Not easy.<\/p>\n When John F. Kennedy, Jr. died with his wife in a plane accident in 1999, the burial of cremains was at sea. \u00a0The cremains went into a container and dropped overboard at sea. \u00a0The family and Church made the\u00a0distinction \u00a0between “burial at sea” and “scattering at sea.”\u00a0While many say this a\u00a0\u00a0distinction without a difference, but there is a difference. \u00a0A burial at sea has the\u00a0cremains remain intact and together. With the\u00a0scattering of the cremains are\u00a0scattered; \u00a0i.e., no container to hold human remains together.\u00a0The same would apply to burial of a body at sea.\u00a0The Catholic question here is the integrity of the remains.<\/p>\n Archbishop Peter Sartain, paraphrasing an Easter homily of Cardinal George’s in his homily at Cardinal George’s funeral Mass said: “If the earth is our mother, then the grave is our home and the world is a closed system turned in on itself. If Christ is risen from the grave and the Church is our mother, then our destiny reaches beyond space and time, beyond what can be measured and controlled.”<\/p>\n We all should read St Paul’s First Letter to the Corinthians 15.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Congregation for\u00a0the Doctrine of the Faith gave an\u00a0instruction,\u00a0Ad resurgendum cum Christo\u00a0(“To Rise With Christ”) concerning the dignity of\u00a0ashes\/cremains of the deceased member of the Faithful. Ad resurgendum cum Christo (2016)\u00a0is a binding Roman Curial document governing the life of the church, which was explicitly approved by the Pope\u00a0with his express order. Yet, this document … Continue reading Cremains to be buried<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[2335,2179],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34178"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34186,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34178\/revisions\/34186"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34178"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34178"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34178"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"030501-N-6141B-022](\"https:\/\/communio.stblogs.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/10\/cremains-214x300.jpg\")
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