David Quinn
Catholic funerals are about praying for the deceased and comforting those who are left behind. Photo: CNS 
Too often a secular mindset is brought to bear upon the funeral which compromises the sacred character of the event writes David Quinn
Three years ago, the Vatican issued a document reiterating that Catholics should not scatter the cremated ashes of their loved ones or keep them in an urn at home.
The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith said they should instead be stored in a sacred space like a cemetery or a church.
How we bury our dead says an awful lot about what we believe. Burying our loved ones in a place like a Christian graveyard emphasises that the person belonged to a community and that the community was Christian.
Bringing an urn home and placing it on a mantlepiece is a much more individualistic thing to do. It might situate the deceased person within their family, but it does not place them in anything wider.
Scattering the ashes might honour a favoured natural beauty spot, but again, the person is not buried with other deceased members of the Christian community.
If we are Christians it makes sense to bury our dead according to Christian customs and beliefs.
But what about the preceding funeral? What should it take the form of? Increasingly Catholic funeral Masses de-emphasise the need to pray for the dead person and instead their life is celebrated and remembered as though there is no real need to pray for them.
This represents a huge shift in belief. It basically takes our salvation for granted.
Therefore, the focus shifts to the life of the person and basically we make them instant saints. The person may not even have been a Mass-goer, or if they were, then the younger members of their family might not be.
A secular mind-set is therefore brought to bear upon the funeral which compromises the sacred character of the event. This is what Fr Tomás Walsh, of Gurranabraher in Cork was saying in a widely covered newsletter to his parishioners.
Offertory gifts
He highlighted the fact that items like cigarettes and beer were being brought to the altar as offertory gifts at funeral Masses.
He wrote: “Bringing things such as a can of beer, a packet of cigarettes, a remote control, a mobile phone or a football jersey does not tell us anything uplifting about the person who has died.
“Surely items such as a flower, a family photograph, a prayer-book or rosary reveals far more about the person who has died and the loss he/she is to the family who grieve.”
The reaction to what Fr Walsh had to say was immediate and mixed. Some agreed that bringing up cigarettes or beer was going too far, but others said that if the person was a smoker or was fond of a drink, then why wouldn’t you bring them up as mementos of the deceased’s life?
On RTÉ, Fr Iggy O’Donovan agreed that maybe some items shouldn’t be brought to the altar, on the other hand, he couldn’t ever remember refusing anyone’s wish to bring up a particular memento or have a particular song played, including by the rapper, Eminem.
Fr Timothy Hazlewood of the Association of Catholic Priests also weighed in. He said the Church had laid down enough rules in the past and now it was time to be far more flexible.
He commented: “I wouldn’t tell anyone what to do. I would bring them in and we would have a chat. They are not gifts, they are symbols that represent the life of the person. They know the people better than we do and it makes the funeral more personal. The Association of Catholic Priests, our view would be that we’ve had enough black-and-white rules and regulations in the past.”
What we have here is another clash between the norms and beliefs of Catholicism per se, and ‘cultural Catholicism’.
We see the same clash at First Holy Communion, Confirmation and Baptism where people want a rite of passage to mark the important event in their lives and the lives of their loved ones, but at the same time want to do it their way, and that is often increasingly secularised and/or commercialised.
One reason why so many people, even when they are very secular, still want a funeral to take place in a church is because nothing better is to hand”
Fr Walsh was trying to maintain the essential character of a funeral Mass and to remind people of what it really is.
As he put it in this newsletter: “A Requiem Mass is essentially the coming together of the family along with the believing community to pray for the person who has died.
At the hour of death – as we begin the journey home to God and to judgement – we desperately need God’s mercy and forgiveness, no matter how edifying the life of the person may seem.”
That is exactly right. Death marks the individual’s great encounter with God. We cannot take for granted what will happen because God, while merciful, is also just and we may not have died in a state of grace.
In fact, to pretend otherwise, or to minimise the need for prayer by allowing the purpose of a funeral Mass to be completely overshadowed by the wishes of an effectively non-believing family is the worst kind of pastoral practice. Pastorally speaking, what the dead person needs above all is prayer.
What’s the answer? One part is better education in the Faith, of the kind Fr Walsh was offering. Another to is make better alternative venues available for funerals, as has been done for weddings.
One reason why so many people, even when they are very secular, still want a funeral to take place in a church is because nothing better is to hand.
We need to remedy this so that secular people can remember their dead in an impressive setting, and the sacred character of funeral Masses can be maintained.
