Dear Editor, Thanks to Cathal Barry for his article ‘The Death of the Removal’ (IC 25/02/2016) and the valuable survey he made of practice in Irish dioceses. The one additional aspect I would have liked to have seen addressed is that of cost.
Meanwhile, a survey of English and Welsh parishes would come up with quite different findings. There, a recent report by the Churches Poverty Action Group calls on clergy to facilitate more economic funeral arrangements and many English clergy discourage removals so as to ease the financial burden on families of the deceased.
The Catholic Church in England and Wales has made available through its parishes a wonderfully practical and most helpful leaflet entitled ‘Instructions for my Funeral Mass’, which addresses many of the issues underlying in your journalist’s findings.
Yours etc.,
Alan Whelan,
Killarney,
Co. Kerry.
