Deposition, degradation and ecclesiastical burial

CERTAIN ecclesiastical penalties resemble censures in some respects, and it will be convenient to say a word about them here. Deposition is an ecclesiastical penalty by which a cleric as a punishment for grave crime is for ever suspended from his office and rendered incapable of holding any office, dignity, benefice, pension, or post in the Church, and deprived of those which he has, even though he was ordained on their title (Can. 2303). It differs from a censure in that it is vindictive, not remedial, and it does not endure merely until correction, amendment, and absolution; but of itself it is perpetual. The deposed cleric retains the privileges of the forum and of the canon,

Degradation is a more severe penalty than deposition, inasmuch as it reduces the cleric to the state of a layman as far as it is in the power of the Church so to do, and deprives him of all clerical offices, rights, and privileges. Degradation is inflicted by the bishop in punishment of grave crimes committed by clerics who are incorrigible, by depriving them solemnly of their vestments and insignia of office, and handing them over to be dealt with by the secular arm,

By ecclesiastical burial is meant interment in consecrated ground with the rites of the Church. All Catholics who die in communion with the faithful have a right to ecclesiastical burial. If there is no consecrated ground in which they can be buried, the grave in which they are placed is blessed at the time of interment. As far as possible Catholics should have a special cemetery of their own or a portion at least of the common cemetery assigned to them exclusively. In this a part should be left unblessed for the reception of the bodies of unbaptized infants and of those to whom Christian burial is to be denied. These are either such as are deprived of ecclesiastical burial because they died out of communion with the faithful, or those to whom it is denied in punishment of crime.

To the first category belong all who are not baptized, open and public heretics, schismatics, apostates, and those under excommunication, for “‘ with those with whom we have not communicated when alive we do not communicate when dead.¹’”4 To the second class belong suicides, unless they killed themselves while out of their mind, and this the Church readily presumes, those who have been killed in a duel, those who did not make their Easter duties, and open and public sinners. No Catholic, however, should be refused ecclesiastical burial without the sentence of the bishop.

Those also, who of their own free will chose to be cremated and persevered in this choice till death, are denied ecclesiastical burial. The Church’s rites may be performed at the house and in the Church in favour of those who are to be cremated by the wish of another, but no sacred rites are permitted at the crematorium.²

Although cremation in itself is not intrinsically wrong, yet the Church for good reasons forbids it, and it is gravely sinful for a Catholic to take a formal part in the cremation of the body of a Catholic.

¹ C. 12, de Sepulturis.

² S.0., December 15, 1886; can. 1203, 1240, 2339.

I. The Prohibition of Cremating Bodies. The bodies of the faithful departed are to be buried, the cremation of the same being reprobated (can. 1203, § 1). The Church forbids the cremation of the bodies of the faithful, both because the custom of cremating bodies is pagan, and because this custom is promoted as a certain protest against the resurrection and the immortality of the soul. Moreover, that the ecclesiastical prohibition obliges under grave sin is clear both from the fact that the Holy Office¹ calls the cremation of bodies a detestable abuse, and from the penalties established against transgressors; concerning these there will be discussion immediately.

Corollary I. It is unlawful "to give one's name to societies whose purpose is to promote the practice of burning human corpses";² likewise "to order that one's own corpse or those of others be burned."³

Corollary II. If anyone has in any way ordered that his body be cremated, it is unlawful to carry out this will; and if it has been added to a contract, testament, or any other act whatsoever, it is to be regarded as not added (can. 1203, § 2).

¹ 19 May 1886 (A. S. S. vol. 19, p. 46).

² Holy Office, 19 May 1886 (A. S. S. vol. 19, p. 46).

³ 27 July 1892.

II. Cooperation in Cremation. 1. The Holy Office¹ decreed that in cremation "it is never lawful to cooperate formally by command or counsel. But material cooperation can sometimes be tolerated, provided that: 1° the cremation is not held as a protest-sign of the Masonic sect; 2° there is not contained in it anything which of itself, directly, and uniquely expresses reprobation of Catholic doctrine and approval of the sect; 3° nor is it established that Catholic officials and workers are bound or called to the work in contempt of the Catholic religion. For the rest, although in these cases they are to be left in good faith, they are nevertheless always to be admonished that they not intend to cooperate in cremation."²

2. The Apostolic Vicar of Vizagapatam asked the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide: 1° what was to be done there, where the bodies of Christians were sometimes cremated by pagan relatives; whether resistance was to be made, with harm to the propagation of the faith, or whether one should proceed passively, and meanwhile, by instructing the people, promote the abolition of the abuse; 2° what should be done where a dying pagan asks for baptism, but it is foreseen that the body will be cremated. To these things the Sacred Congregation replied:³ "The question ... was submitted to the judgment of the Supreme Inquisition. The response which I received from that venerable Congregation concerning this matter is contained in the following decree, which I communicate to you, namely: 'You must not approve cremation, but conduct yourself passively, always conferring baptism, and take care that the peoples be instructed according to those things which are set forth by you.'"

¹ 27 July 1892.

² Cf. Holy Office, 10 June 1926 (A. A. S. 1926, p. 282).

³ 27 September 1884 (Collectanea, n. 1626).

III. The Established Penalties. 1. Those who have ordered their body to be given over to cremation are deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless before death they have given some signs of repentance (can. 1240, 5°). Moreover, "those are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial who have ordered their body to be given over to cremation and have remained in this will up to death, even if cremation does not follow according to the norm of can. 1203, § 2."¹ Finally, neither is it lawful "to bestow ecclesiastical burial upon the ashes of one cremated, or in any way to preserve them in a blessed cemetery."²

2. It is unlawful "publicly to offer the Sacrifice of the Mass for the faithful whose bodies have been cremated not without their own fault ... and likewise to accept foundations for this purpose."³ Besides, those err who, "from the specious reason that the deceased, while he was living, had been accustomed to perform some act of religion, or that perhaps at the last moment of life he could have retracted his depraved will, judge it lawful to perform for him, in the presence of the corpse, ecclesiastical funeral rites according to custom, although this corpse afterwards, by the deceased's own arrangement, is to be handed over to fire. For since nothing can be certainly established concerning this conjectured retraction, it is plain that no account can be taken of it in the external forum."⁴

¹ Pontifical Commission, 10 November 1925 (A. A. S. 1925, p. 583).

² Holy Office, 19 June 1926 (A. A. S. 1926, p. 282).

³ Holy Office, 27 July 1892.

⁴ Holy Office, 19 June 1926 (A. A. S. 1926, p. 282).

IV. Notes. 1. If some member of the faithful has ordered that his body be cremated after death, he has indeed sinned gravely. But if he is in good faith, with respect to admonition "the rules handed down by approved authors are to be observed, especially taking account of avoiding scandal."¹

2. "Whenever there is question of those whose bodies are subjected to cremation not by their own will but by the will of another, the rites and suffrages of the Church can be used both at home and in church, but not as far as the place of cremation, scandal having been removed. Scandal, moreover, can also be removed if it is made known that cremation was not chosen by the will of the deceased himself."²

¹ Holy Office, 27 July 1892 (Collectanea, n. 1808).

² Holy Office, 15 December 1886 (A. S. S. vol. 25, p. 63); cf. Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, 26 January 1911.

The Code (Canon 684) mentions the following kinds of societies as banned for Catholics:

(a) secret societies, that is, those which demand of members that certain things which the society considers secrets be told absolutely to no one outside the society, or certain degrees of the society, not even to those who may legitimately inquire about them, such as the bishop or civil superior in the external forum, parents with regard to their children not emancipated, pastors and confessors in the internal forum. Those societies are also secret which demand blind and absolute obedience to unknown leaders;

(b) condemned societies, that is, such as have been censured by the Church, or simply forbidden. Canon 2335 decrees ipso facto excommunication reserved to the Holy See against all those who join Masonic or similar associations which plot against the Church or lawful civil authority. Among the societies forbidden without censure are: various Biblical societies, societies for the promotion of cremation, the Knights of Pythias, the Odd Fellows, the Sons of Temperance, the Independent Order of Good Templars, Theosophical societies, the Y.M.C.A. Female societies affiliated with these are also condemned, since they are branches of the main society—for example, the Rebeccas, the Eastern Star, the Pythian Sisters.

Worthy of detailed consideration is the condemnation of the Communist Party and the penalties attached to membership in, or defense, or propagation of the Party. The following questions were asked of the Holy Office:

1. Whether it is licit to join the Communist Party or to favor it.

Reply: In the negative; for Communism is materialistic and anti-Christian; and the leaders of the Communists, although they sometimes verbally profess that they are not attacking religion, in fact, nevertheless, by doctrine and action show themselves to be enemies of God and of the true religion and the Church of Christ.

2. Whether it is licit to publish, propagate, or read books, periodicals, daily papers, or sheets which promote the doctrine or action of Communists, or to write in them.

Reply: In the negative: for they are forbidden ipso iure (see Canon 1399).

3. Whether the faithful who knowingly and freely do the acts mentioned in 1 and 2 can be admitted to the sacraments.

Reply: In the negative, according to the ordinary principles governing the refusal of the sacraments to those who are not properly disposed.

4. Whether the faithful who profess the materialistic and anti-Christian doctrine of Communists, and especially those who defend or propagate it, incur ipso facto as apostates from the Catholic faith the excommunication specially reserved to the Holy See.

Reply: In the affirmative (Decree of the Holy Office, July 1, 1949).

The sanction of excommunication specially reserved to the Holy See was imposed also upon those who teach boys and girls in associations set up by the Communists to imbue youth with principles and training which are materialistic and contrary to Christian morality and faith. The associations themselves are subject to the sanctions of the decree of July 1, 1949. Moreover parents or guardians who send their children to such associations, and the children themselves, as long as they have part in these associations, cannot be admitted to the reception of the sacraments (Monitum of the Holy Office, July 28, 1950).

(c) seditious societies, that is, those organizations, even though not secret, which aim at the overthrow of family and property rights;

(d) suspect societies, that is, those whose principles or methods have the appearance of being unsound. On January 11, 1951 the Holy Office in response to the question: “Whether Catholics may join the ‘Rotary Club’?” issued the following decree: “It is not licit for clerics to join the Association ‘Rotary Club’ or to be present at its meetings; the laypeople are to be urged to preserve the prescript of Canon 684.” The decree seems to have taken many English-speaking people by surprise, one paper describing it as “a bewildering document.” The surprise flowed from personal experience of Rotary Clubs as social clubs dedicated to bonhomie and community improvement. Nevertheless, the decree was in accord with the general trend of Church policy in regard to undenominational societies. They are not approved; they are not condemned as Masonry has been condemned. What is their position? The response that layfolk are to be exhorted to observe Canon 684 is indicative of the attitude of the Church in regard to such societies. The canon instructs them to “beware of secret, condemned, seditious and suspect societies.” Since Rotary Clubs are seldom considered to be secret and never as condemned nor as seditious, the implication is that they are suspect. Such was the interpretation of the decree given in the Osservatore Romano of Jan. 27, 1951.

In regard to clerics, the effect of the decree was to make illicit what was formerly simply inexpedient; for the Sacred Consistory had replied on February 4th, 1929, that it was not expedient for Ordinaries to permit clerics to join Rotary Clubs, or to take part in their meetings. Moreover, as the Osservatore article indicates, the prohibition is limited to meetings of members only and does not extend to meetings at which non-members may be present, provided the purpose of such meetings befits priestly activity.

The exhortation to layfolk in regard to “Rotary” simply reaffirms the Church’s general attitude to all secular associations. As early as November 5, 1920 the Holy Office, referring specifically to Y.M.C.A., warned the Ordinaries that the note of “suspicion” attaches to all secular societies. Their efforts to promote good works and good moral standards independent of religious authority tend to foster the spirit of religious indifferentism and moral naturalism. Both the Spanish hierarchy (1929) and the Dutch hierarchy (1930) have so judged Rotary. However, the degree of suspicion to be attached to each Rotary Club is a question of fact to be determined in specific instances by the proper local Ordinary. Where evidence of suspicion is available, exhortatious not to join the clubs must be made; in the lack of such evidence, the ordinaries may maintain discreet silence.

(e) societies that aim to elude the lawful vigilance of religious authority.

Two Other Important General Laws of the Church.—(a) The prohibition of wicked and dangerous writings (Canons 1384 sqq.) is based on the natural law, which requires one to avoid what is proximately dangerous to faith or morals. This subject is treated above in 1456, 849 sqq., 1529.

(b) The prohibition of the cremation of corpses (Canon 1203) is not based on natural law or on any dogma, as though the burning of dead bodies were intrinsically evil or repugnant to our faith in immortality and resurrection. On the contrary, in exceptional cases (e.g., in time of war or epidemic) cremation is permitted, if a real public necessity requires it. The reasons for the anti-cremation law are: the tradition of the Old and New Testaments (Gen., iii, 19; I Cor., xv. 42), and especially the example of Christ whose body was consigned to the tomb; the association of burial throughout the history of the Church with sacred rites and the doctrine of the future life, and the contrary association of cremation both in times past and today with paganism and despair; the sacred dignity of the human body (Gen., i. 25; I Cor., iii. 16, vi. 5), and the feeling of affection for parents, relatives, friends, which is outraged when their bodies are consigned to the furnace. The practical arguments offered for cremation are chiefly hygienic and economic; but it is certain that proper burial at sea or in the grave is no menace to public health, and is not more expensive or difficult than cremation. A most serious objection to cremation is that it makes exhumation impossible, and is therefore a means of concealing murder by poison. It is not lawful for a Catholic to cooperate (except materially in case of necessity) with cremation, or to belong to any society that promotes the incineration of corpses; it is not lawful for a priest to give the last Sacraments or funeral rites to those who ordered the cremation of their bodies.

What is ecclesiastical burial? Ecclesiastical burial, concerning which in the preceding paragraph it has often been said, consists of two things: a sacred or blessed place, which by the Bishop or by use has been assigned for burying the faithful piously dying in Christ, and a sacred rite in carrying out and burying the dead person. It is tolerated that the bodies of the faithful be carried by carriage to the church and cemetery, and then also the parish priest and clergy, vested in sacred vestments and with the cross raised, can conduct the funeral. Sacred Congregation of Rites, March 5, 1870, n. 3212. Before the corpse is carried to the cemetery, it must be borne into the church, so that there it may at least receive absolution, and, insofar as this can be done, Mass may be celebrated for him with the body of the deceased present. Therefore the Mass can be postponed to another day. Nor indeed is there an obligation concerning it. Roman Ritual, de Exsequiis, de Bened. Coem.; C. Ad haec 4, de Relig. dom.; Suarez, disp. 12, sec. 4, n. 6; Salmanticenses, tract 10, chap. 3, n. 75. When a new cemetery is blessed, some outer part must be left without blessing for burying infants not baptized and others to whom ecclesiastical burial is denied. Nor indeed is it necessary that that part be separated by a wall, provided that it can be distinguished from the other. But if, because of civil law, all are to be buried indiscriminately in the cemetery, then the blessing of the cemetery must be omitted; but on each occasion on which a Catholic is to be buried, the place in which his body is to be deposited must be blessed as in the Ritual. E.M.

What is to be said about the choice of burial? All can choose burial where they prefer, although outside their parish church or cemetery, provided they do not choose the churches of nuns, and choose a religious place, or at least one not profane, such as a private oratory, and the place has the right of burial. But these are excepted: 1. regulars, unless they die so far removed from their own monasteries that they cannot conveniently be carried to them; 2. those not yet pubescent, for whom the father can choose burial, or the mother, if he is dead. One who dies with no burial chosen for himself is to be buried in the tomb of his ancestors, namely the family tomb (which someone established for himself and his family), or the hereditary tomb (which he established for himself and his heirs). But otherwise someone is to be buried in that parish in which he died, if in it he had domicile or quasi-domicile. And if he died outside these places, he must be carried to the place of domicile or quasi-domicile; but if this is so remote that he cannot conveniently be carried there, he will be buried either in the cathedral church, if one exists there, or in the church of that parish in which he finished his day.

For acquiring the right of burial for oneself and one's family or heirs, with others excluded, the license of the Ordinary of the place is required, or of Regulars who can grant it from privilege for their churches, chapels, and cemeteries. Pirhing, book 3, title 28, sec. 3, n. 24.

By special law Bishops are to be buried in the cathedral church if they do not choose another place for themselves; a wife will be buried in the tomb of her last husband if she does not choose her own burial; but a husband, if he dies first without burial chosen, in that which the wife has chosen; exposed infants in the tomb of the hospital by which they were nourished; clerics in that church in which, when dying, they possessed a residential benefice; regulars in the church of their order, although they died outside the monastery, if they can conveniently be carried to it, and therefore all who enjoy the law of regulars, namely novices, servants, tertiaries, and female tertiaries who live perpetually in a monastery. But those who live apart can be buried in the church of the order whose habit they had assumed, if in these there exists their common burial and they have not died having chosen another; otherwise they are to be buried in the parish church. Women who, with license of the Apostolic See, had entered a monastery with the intention of remaining there perpetually are to be buried there; not likewise girls who were staying in the monastery for the sake of education, who are to be buried in the parish where the monastery is. C. 1, 3, 5, 6, 7, 10, h.t.; C. 1-5, e.t., in VI; Clementine 2, e.t.; S.C. Bishops and Regulars, June 8, 1731; May 6, 1870; April 5, 1878; A.S.S., vol. 5, p. 568; vol. 11, p. 352; Ferraris, h.v., n. 102; v. Moniales, art. 1, nn. 61, 62, 63; Schmalzgrueber, book 3, title 28, nn. 1-38, 72-82; Giraldi, Animadvers. ad Barbosa de Off. et Potest. parochi, part 3, chap. 26, n. 25; E.M.

What is to be said about the right of carrying out and conducting the funeral? "The rite of the Church commands that the bodies of the faithful, however they are carried (even by carriage), whether to the church or to the cemetery, always be accompanied by a priest." Sacred Congregation of Rites, July 15, 1876, Santander. The right of carrying out the dead and conducting the funeral to the church, as today they call the exposing church, as regards seculars, regularly belongs to the parish priest alone, namely the proper parish priest of each one by reason of domicile or quasi-domicile, if someone has died in his own parish and is buried in it; or if, although he died in his own parish, he is to be buried in another, although the church is of regulars; or, if he died in another parish and is to be buried in his own. To the church: for from this to the cemetery, without pomp and by a direct route, it belongs to those to whom, if cemeteries did not exist, the right of burying would belong. Cf. Decree on funerals of the Sacred Congregation of Rites, April 23, 1895, n. 3854. The canons of the Cathedral Church furnish these things to a Bishop; the prelate to regulars; the ordinary chaplain of the monastery, or confessor, to nuns, although the cemetery is outside their church and one must pass through the parish, "provided that the body is carried with stole and cross, but without pomp and by a direct route to the cemetery." S.C.C., February 24, 1872; August 12, 1872. Yet "dispersed Religious as regards funerals are subject to the parish priest of the place just as the other parishioners." S.C. Bishops and Regulars, February 26, 1864; A.S.S., vol. 1, p. 168. Roman Ritual, de Exseq.; S.C.C., August 21, 1869; A.S.S. cited, vol. 5, pp. 126, 221, 611; S.C. Bishops and Regulars, March 21, 1884; A.S.S. cited, vol. 16, p. 551; Ferraris, v. Parochus, art. 3; Benedict XIV, Notification 33, n. 16; Notification 105, n. 33 ff.; E.M.

Therefore, if the deceased is to be entombed or exposed outside his own parish, it belongs to the parish priest to carry the stole, to raise the body from the house, and to conduct the funeral up to the door of the entombing or exposing church, whether this is secular or regular. Regulars in whose church the deceased is to be entombed or exposed can go together with the parish priest from the parish church to the house of the deceased and, when the body has been raised by the parish priest, accompany it to their own entombing church; or they can wait at the door of their own church without going to the association of the funeral. A single Cross is to be carried in funerals, and it is that of the entombing or exposing church, under which the parish priest himself is bound to walk, if it belongs to regulars and the regulars accompany the funeral together with the parish priest. If the Chapter of the Cathedral or Collegiate church is present, it belongs privatively to it to raise the cross. Sacred Congregation of Rites, April 23, 1895, A.S.S., vol. 36, p. 421 ff.

Regulars can accompany and conduct the deceased, but by a direct route, from their own church in which he is exposed to the cemetery without the intervention of the parish priest. S.C. Bishops and Regulars, May 5, 1905, A.S.S., vol. 38, p. 207.

S.C.C., August 27, 1904, resolved: As regards strangers deceased elsewhere, who chose burial in the cemetery of some place, with no church designated by the deceased himself in which the solemn rites of the funeral are to be fulfilled, the right of conducting the funeral and burying belongs to the parish priest of the cathedral or to the principal church of the place, with customs and particular constitutions preserved. As regards pilgrims who are staying perfunctorily in a city and die there without choosing burial, while they cannot be transferred to the place of their domicile, the right of conducting the funeral and burying belongs to the parish priest of the place in which the pilgrim completed his life, with customs and particular constitutions preserved. A.S.S., vol. 37, p. 462 ff.

Since a family tomb is not judged canonically erected unless the license of the Ordinary is added, hence tombs which in modern cemeteries have been instituted by civil authority alone, without the intervention of ecclesiastical authority, can in no way be said to have been founded in the sense of canon law. Therefore the right of conducting the funeral and receiving the emoluments of the funeral of that deceased person who is to be buried in a canonically erected tomb belongs to the entombing parish priest, the funeral fourth being reserved to the parish priest of domicile.

Conversely, if there is question of a tomb not canonically erected, the right of conducting the funeral of the aforesaid deceased person and of receiving all emoluments from it pertains to the parish priest of domicile; although in the case the parish priest of burial can, from the will of the deceased or of the parents, perform another funeral and receive its emoluments. From S.C.C., June 17, 1905, A.S.S., vol. 38, p. 230.

In which church is the funeral to be performed? The funeral rites are to be performed in that church in which the deceased commanded; and if he commanded nothing, since they are part of ecclesiastical burial, in that church in which he is buried, or would be buried, if there are common public cemeteries there. But if a church of this kind is the parish church, the heirs cannot require that the exposition of the body and the funeral rites be done elsewhere; but if it is not the parish church, the parish priest likewise cannot require that they be done in the parish church. Nor indeed is it then lawful for the parish priest to perform the rites in another's church, Sacred Congregation of Rites, April 23, 1895, unless there is question of a public oratory of Confraternities, when the one to be entombed is a subject of the parish priest within whose parish boundaries the oratory is located. Sacred Congregation of Rites, July 7, 1877, n. 3423; S.C.C., March 24, 1821, A.S.S., vol. 5, p. 566.

It is lawful in another's church, even of Regulars, to sing a Mass of Requiem after the funeral rites have been fulfilled in the parish church, even if the exequial Mass was not celebrated in the parish church. Sacred Congregation of Rites, May 1879, n. 3494. From the Roman Ritual, Mass is not a necessary part of a funeral, and therefore it can be omitted. Thus also from the Sacred Congregation of Rites, May 13, 1879, n. 3474.

Regulars can celebrate exequies on the third, seventh, and thirtieth day. For parish priests cannot claim anything except the funeral right when burial is chosen elsewhere. Sacred Congregation of Rites, July 26, 1637, n. 643. Likewise Regulars can celebrate Masses of Requiem on anniversary days. Sacred Congregation of Rites, January 24, 1902.

The use can be tolerated of covering with branches and flowers the tombs which are erected in churches on the occasion of funerals. Sacred Congregation of Rites, June 16, 1893, Goana, ad 6; E.M.

What is to be said about funeral emoluments? Funeral emoluments go to the church in which someone is buried or exposed, if he is buried in public cemeteries. From these, if the aforesaid church is not the parish church, some portion is owed to the parish priest in compensation for the work which he sustains in administering the sacraments to his parishioners; this, because it has been established by Canon Law, is called canonical. But it is a fourth by common law, unless something else has been introduced by the custom of the place or by privilege. It is owed to the parish priest of domicile or quasi-domicile; and if someone has been laid in another church, it must be deducted by the burying or exposing church, unless a contrary custom or privilege is present. Council of Trent, sess. 25, chap. 13, de Ref.; St. Pius V, constitution Etsi Mendicantium, May 16, 1567, sec. 11; Paul V, Brief Decet Romanum Pontificem, IV Kalends of May, 1725; S.C. Bishops and Regulars, April 19, 1790; August 18, 1843; S.C.C., November 26, 1864, A.S.S., vol. 1, p. 86; S.C.C., February 16, 1867, A.S.S., vol. 3, p. 305; vol. 5, p. 209 ff.; vol. 9, p. 27; vol. 15, p. 553 ff.; vol. 11, p. 381; C. 1, 4, 8, 9, 10, h.t.; C. 2, e.t., in VI; Clementine 2, e.t.; Schmalzgrueber, l.c., nn. 83-93; Ferraris, v. Quarta Funeralis.

The celebration of funerals and the receipt of emoluments in families of mixed rite, Latin and Ruthenian, in the Canadian region and in the United States of North America, pertain to the parish priest of that rite to which the deceased belonged. Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, August 8, 1913, art. 32; August 17, 1914, art. 26.

What is the funeral fourth? The funeral fourth is that portion of emoluments to be paid to the parish priest when someone is buried outside his own parish. The aforesaid portion is determined by diocesan statutes or by custom. It is deducted only from those emoluments which come to the entombing church on the occasion of the funeral, from the candles and wax candles offered, but by no means from legacies for Masses. "The funeral fourth, or canonical portion, is owed from all things which come by reason of the funeral, namely on the day of the funeral." Barbosa, De Parocho, part 3, chap. 25, n. 36. Benedict XIII, constitution Romanus Pontifex, April 28, 1725, sec. 4, issued for Italy and the adjacent islands, established: "That... to the parish priests of the deceased who will be entombed in the churches of any regulars whatsoever, there be paid and actually handed over the fourth part of all torches and candles by which the body of the deceased will be accompanied on the journey to the entombing church, and also of all torches and candles which will be lit in the same church around the body, or also on the altars on the day of the funeral. Yet from the aforesaid funeral fourth are to be understood as excepted, and are excepted, the candles which priests, even regulars, or the confreres of pious sodalities accompanying the funeral will manually carry lit along the way.

But if the funeral is not done on the day of entombment, but is deferred to a different day or to another longer time, nevertheless to the parish priest there is to be assigned the fourth part of all torches and candles which on the very day of the funeral performed will have been lit in the church where the deceased was buried, around the cenotaph or honorary tomb, and also on the altars of the same church.... Under the aforesaid funeral fourth we do not intend legacies of Masses and anniversaries to be comprehended; indeed we expressly except from it these and similar pious things left in favor of the entombing or exposing church as disposed by the deceased," etc. It must be added that "a fourth is also owed to the parish priest from funerals performed in second place." S.C.C., August 3, 1621. Barbosa, l.c.; Ferraris, v. Quarta funeralis; A.S.S., vol. 5, p. 598 ff.

Are rights changed by the constitution of a public cemetery? By the constitution of a public cemetery only the material place of burial is changed; but the rights of churches and of the faithful as regards burial and funerals are by no means changed. Likewise by the illegitimate suppression of regulars their ecclesiastical rights cannot be suppressed; nor do the same rights cease if regular families in some way persist and live together, although before civil law they are not recognized as ecclesiastical institutes; for in that case the subject of those rights still persists. S.C.C., November 26, 1814; February 16, 1867; September 16, 1871; February 24, 1872; A.S.S., vol. 1, pp. 87, 124, 239; vol. 5, p. 569; vol. 13, p. 419; vol. 20, p. 587.

Who are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial? Burial is part of ecclesiastical communion, and therefore "no Christian who has died in the communion of the faithful ought to be buried outside a church or cemetery duly blessed." Roman Ritual, de Exsequiis. But those to whom it is not lawful to give ecclesiastical burial you have in the Roman Ritual, ibid.; E.M.

What is to be said about suicides and duellists? As regards suicides, the Holy Office, May 16, 1866, has these things: "When it is certainly established either concerning anger or despair, ecclesiastical burial must be denied and the pomps and solemnities of exequies must be avoided; but when insanity is certainly established, ecclesiastical burial is given with the solemnities of exequies; yet when doubt remains whether someone gave death to himself through despair or through insanity, ecclesiastical burial can be given, with the pomps and solemnities of exequies nevertheless avoided."

Duellists, according to Benedict XIV, constitution Detestabilem, sec. 9, are deprived of ecclesiastical burial, although they have been absolved, and even before the sentence of a judge, whether they die in the place of the duel or afterwards outside that place. But duellists do not incur the penalties of duellists because of an unexpected encounter, although those fighting, from the same impulse of quarrel, have gone equally to some suitable place. S.C.C., October 5, 1744; E.M.

What is to be said about sectarians and heretics? To sectarians, if they are notorious, "neither sacraments, nor exequies, nor ecclesiastical burial can be granted, unless, after due retraction has been emitted, they have been reconciled to God and the Church through absolution. But if sometimes the same persons, prevented by death, could not duly emit retraction, yet before death gave signs of repentance and devotion, then ecclesiastical burial can be granted to them, with ecclesiastical pomps and solemnities of exequies nevertheless forbidden." Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide, May 10, 1898.

Likewise heretics to whom ecclesiastical burial must be denied are not occult heretics, but public and manifest ones, although not yet declared by the Church. This is established from the constitution of Martin V Inter cunctas, and the Response approved by Urban VIII, Holy Office, November 6, 1641, and also from the constitution Apostolicae Sedis, art. 1 of Excommunications reserved to no one. E.M.

What is to be said about notorious excommunicated persons and about those whose bodies are subjected to cremation? If a notorious excommunicated person dies before he is reconciled to the Church, but before his death has given signs of repentance, "when the signs of repentance have been made known, ecclesiastical burial can be given, with ecclesiastical pomps and solemnities of exequies nevertheless forbidden. But if in some case extraordinary circumstances concur, the parish priest should consult the Ordinary and stand by his mandates." Holy Office, July 6, 1898.

Ecclesiastical burial must be denied to those who by their own will chose cremation, and who certainly and notoriously persevered in this will up to death. It is otherwise if cremation occurs by the will of others. Holy Office, December 15, 1886; E.M.

Cremation of bodies is illicit. Therefore it is illicit to command it, to cooperate formally in it, and to give one's name to societies which promote it. To those who commanded it, it is lawful neither to administer the sacraments nor to give ecclesiastical burial. But if their bodies are cremated by another's will, the rites of the Church can be used both at home and in church, but not as far as the place of cremation, scandal being removed.

What is to be said about public sinners? Ecclesiastical burial is not to be denied to the guilty who are punished with death, if they have given signs of repentance; but they are to be buried without solemnity. The same must be said of prostitutes who die in a public brothel, and who have satisfied public scandal and have confessed their sins. Ecclesiastical burial can be given to them, with the pomps and solemnities of exequies nevertheless avoided, Holy Office, September 19, 1877. Nor is it to be denied to actors and comedians, provided they have not refused the sacraments; for this is prohibited by no law. Those who have not satisfied the precept of Easter Communion or annual confession today are not deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless after an edict proposed, which is no longer customarily proposed, and after the Ordinary has been consulted.

Likewise it is not to be denied to impenitent sinners if the priest alone was witness of impenitence of this kind, in order to avoid scandals. Hence the priest, doubtful about the dispositions of the dying person, should speak to him without witnesses and induce him to confession, provided public scandal is not to be repaired. E.M.

What is to be done in a case of doubt? "Where doubt occurs, the Ordinary should be consulted." Ritual, l.c.; Holy Office, May 16, 1866, etc. If recourse cannot be had to him, the principle holds: in doubt, odious things are to be restricted; nor indeed, because of the grave inconveniences which could arise from it, is burial to be denied to anyone unless it is certain that this obligation exists. La Croix, book 7, nn. 254-256. "Moreover," says St. Alphonsus, de Priv., n. 91, "no one is to be deprived of burial in any case without the sentence of the Bishop, or of the superior, if the body is that of a religious." Since there is question of positive law, which does not oblige with grave inconvenience, in such a case it is lawful to carry out the dead person with Catholic rite and to pay the solemn funeral rites to him, provided that these are not extorted in contempt of the Church, and provided that the deceased is not carried out with Masonic signs placed on the bier or on banners. The Holy Office, July 13, 1609, judged that the burial of heretics is to be tolerated if it cannot be resisted without scandal. And the Sacred Penitentiary, December 10, 1860, concerning those notoriously excommunicated says, "care must be taken that all things be done according to the norm of the sacred canons; but insofar as this cannot be obtained without danger of disturbances and scandal, the parish priest should in no way concur in the burial either by himself or through other priests," i.e., he should conduct himself passively. E.M.

Masonic or anti-Catholic banners can in no way be admitted in funerals and in churches. Indeed in churches only blessed banners are to be admitted, unless otherwise disturbances and dangers are feared. Sacred Congregation of Rites, July 14, 1887, ad 1, n. 3679; Sacred Penitentiary, April 3, 1887; Holy Office, April 4, 1887.

1. "When a wife has predeceased within the limits of a certain parish, no burial having been chosen, and the husband declaring that she is to be buried in the ancestral sepulcher of the husband himself, which is in the Church of another parish, supplication was made that it be defined: whether the husband could licitly do this for the predeceased wife?

R. That if the husband has his own burial place, the wife also is to be entombed in it; but if not, in the parish church within whose limits she died." S. R. C., Jan. 15, 1633, n. 601; I. M. 1150.

2. "The chaplain of a confraternity contended against the parish priest of the place that to himself, and not to the parish priest, belonged the right of performing the funeral office over corpses which, unless public cemeteries existed, would have to be buried in the public church of that confraternity.

R. The aforesaid right belongs to the parish priest when the one to be entombed is subject to the parish priest and to the parish within whose boundaries the aforesaid church of the confraternity is." S. R. C., Dec. 10, 1703, ad 20, n. 2123; Nov. 20, 1885, ad 4, n. 3645.

3. Primatius, advocate and parish priest, for the funeral rites of the Marquis de Fugatiis, his parishioner, yet to be entombed in another parish according to the latter's testament, contended against the rest of the clergy present, against the other parish priest of the entombing church, and against the chapter also of the cathedral church, invited with the others, that all ought to proceed under the cross of his parish, that he alone, vested with stole, ought to lead the funeral, and that he should fulfill all the functions of the obsequies. For it is a question, he says, of his own parishioner. - Is this rightly said?

R. Negatively. For 1.º "The corpses of the dead are to be accompanied with one cross only, which ought to be that of the church to which the body of the deceased is borne, provided that the chapter of the cathedral church does not intervene, under which all who accompany the funeral ought to proceed.

2.º The right and burden always belongs, even when the chapter of the cathedral church is present, yet outside this cathedral church, to the parish priest, of putting on the stole and performing all offices over the corpse of the deceased belonging to his church, until from the place of death it has entered the entombing church.

3.º The same parish priest has precedence over all the clergy, except if the chapter of the cathedral church has been present, which in the accompaniment will proceed after the parish priest himself. In this Case the more worthy member of the cathedral chapter proceeds with stole and cope, which the parish priest does not wear.

4.º If the deceased is to be entombed in another parish church, to the rector of that one church alone, likewise vested with stole, belongs the right and burden of performing the remaining offices there over the corpse, and of preceding all others, not even the parish priest of the deceased excepted, who, when the corpse has been brought to the threshold of the church, should withdraw." S. R. C., Apr. 23, 1895, n. 3854, Decr. sup. exequiis.

1001. • Deposition and degradation are most grave penalties very closely allied to suspension and are customarily likened to it, because they affect Clerics alone and in the same manner induce privation of ecclesiastical rights and Benefices. Nevertheless, they are not properly censures, because they are inflicted only as punishment and not as medicine.

Deposition is an ecclesiastical penalty by which a Cleric is deprived of the use of ecclesiastical power and of every radical title for exercising it, and also of every right validly to possess Benefices, and this perpetually. It is therefore of itself an irremissible penalty. See St. Alphonsus, no. 324 and following.

Degradation is the solemn privation of all titles, goods, privileges, and ecclesiastical goods, so that the degraded person, with only the indelible character of Order remaining, is reduced to the lay condition. Hence it differs from deposition: 1. because degradation is a solemn privation of ecclesiastical goods, but deposition is not such; 2. because degradation deprives one of both clerical privileges, namely, of canon and forum, whereas deposition does not deprive one of these privileges. Hence one who struck a deposed person would incur excommunication, but not if he laid violent hands upon a degraded person; for the latter does not differ from a layman.

Degradation cannot be inflicted except for monstrous crimes, such as the manifest crime of heresy, falsification of Apostolic letters, habitual and notorious sodomy, a most grave calumny laid against a Bishop, etc. See St. Alphonsus, ibid.

QUESTION. Is a degraded person bound to the canonical Hours and to the vow of chastity?

Reply. Affirmatively as to both, because he ought not to be released from this burden and receive an advantage from his own malice. Hence he would contract matrimony invalidly. St. Alphonsus, no. 327.

1010. • The bodies of the faithful deceased are, by precept of the Church, to be buried in a sacred place blessed and consecrated for this purpose, or in the Church itself. But those who do not belong to the Church of Christ can be buried neither according to the ecclesiastical rite nor in a sacred place. Ecclesiastical burial must also be denied to Christians who are deemed unworthy of it because they have either abandoned the faith, departed from the living in contumacy and impenitence, or were rebellious children, as is evident from what was said concerning the effects of excommunication and interdict.

1013. • QUESTION 3. What is to be done in doubt whether ecclesiastical burial must be denied or not?

Reply. The Bishop is to be consulted if easy recourse to him is available; otherwise action must be taken in favor of granting burial according to the principle: In doubt, odious things are to be restricted. For since great inconveniences, especially in our times, are accustomed to arise from the denial of burial, it is expedient that such denial not be made unless its obligation is certainly established.

QUESTION 4. Is burial to be denied if the Priest alone was a witness to the dying person's rejection and impenitence?

Reply. Negatively, unless burial ought to be denied to him from some other source because of one of the causes set forth above, for example, because of a censure, etc. But the Priest must remain silent concerning the impious disposition of the dying person and allow it to be believed that he was duly purified by the Sacraments. For scandals must be avoided insofar as possible. Indeed, it will be worthwhile for a Priest who is doubtful concerning the disposition of the dying person to speak with him without witnesses and induce him to confession, lest his evil disposition become known, provided that some scandal need not necessarily be repaired. Prudence counsels this, which has been established in various Dioceses.

1014. • QUESTION 5. Is burial to be denied to mimes and actors?

Reply. Negatively, provided they have not refused the Sacraments of the Church, as was said concerning other sinners in the preceding question. For no canonical law is found which excludes them from ecclesiastical burial. Gousset, On Extreme Unction, no. 637.

When a cemetery is blessed, some outer part of it is to be left without blessing so that it may serve for the burial of infants who departed from the living without Baptism, of infidels who died in Christian places, and also of any others to whom ecclesiastical burial must be denied. It is not absolutely required that this part be separated from the rest of the cemetery, for example, by a wall, hedge, or some trench, but it suffices that it can be distinguished in some way.

End of the Treatise on Censures.

1. GENERAL REMARKS.—The belief that we owe reverence and respect to the bodies of our departed fellowmen is deeply ingrained in human nature.

a) All nations agree that it is the duty of a dead man’s relatives to provide for the decent burial of his body and that his friends and those indebted to him for favors should join in paying him the “last honors,” i. e., accompany his corpse to its final resting-place.¹ From this conviction arose certain burial forms or rites, which differed according to the stage of culture. Equally general is the belief that the denial of the customary burial rites is an act of dishonor towards the dead, his relatives and friends. An honest burial may be denied only to those who at the time of their death had notoriously forfeited every claim to honor and consideration.

¹ Cfr. Gen. XLVII, 29; L, 1–13; 1 Kings XXXI, 11–13; 2 Kings II, 5.—Cfr. P. Lex, Das kirchliche Begräbnisrecht, pp. 3 sqq.

b) The Catholic Church has approved and sanc- tified these general notions and customs regarding burial. In the light of Christian belief the mortal remains of the dead are invested with a higher significance. We owe them honor and reverence because they were organs of the spirit, and likewise on account of their participation in the supernatural life of grace and virtue led by the Christian believer, and because they are destined to rise again and become reunited with their souls.² The Church, therefore, did not abolish the civil funeral ceremonies, but transformed them into a religious and liturgical rite, the essential elements of which are the solemn blessing of the corpse, usually in church, and burial in consecrated soil and the offering up of prayers and sacrifices for the repose of the soul.

² St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, l. I, c. 13: “Nevertheless the bodies of the dead, and especially of the just and faithful, are not therefore to be despised and cast away; the Holy Spirit used them as organs and vessels for all good works.” (Migne, P. L., XLI, 27). Cfr. also the same author’s treatise, De Cura pro Mortuis Gerenda, c. 7, n. 9 (Ibid., XL, 598).

The Church denies the “last honors” of Christian burial only to those who, by some definite sinful act, have deprived themselves of honor among their fellowmen. She permits the erection of beautiful monuments to the dead for the reason that exhibition of honors does not cease with death,³ and honors shown to a dead person reflect glory upon his family. But she condemns mere pomp or hypocritical ostentation as unbecoming.

³ Apoc. XIV, 13.

2. BURIAL OR CREMATION?—The interment of the dead, commonly known as burial (inhumatio), dates back to the beginnings of the human race. The divine sentence: “In the sweat of thy face shalt thou eat bread till thou return to the earth, out of which thou wast taken: for dust thou art, and into dust thou shalt return,”⁴ was verified among all the nations of antiquity, and even to-day burial is looked upon by all highly civilized peoples as the most becoming method of disposing of the mortal remains of man.

⁴ Gen. III, 19; cfr. Ecclus. XL, 1.

The custom of burying corpses in the earth, or in sealed coffins in mausoleums above the earth, has entered into the practice and ritual of the Catholic Church. She devotes a special religious cult to the bodies of the dead and surrounds the ceremony of burial (ordo exequiarum), the place of burial, and the monument erected upon the grave with a profound and beautiful religious symbolism.⁵

⁵ Rit. Rom., tit. VI, c. 1 and 3; cfr. F. Probst, Die Exequien, Tübingen 1856; C. Krieg, Die Wissenschaft der Seelenleitung, Vol. I, pp. 232 sqq.

a) The custom of burning the bodies of the dead (crematio) is of pagan origin and anciently was practiced mostly in connection with fire worship. The Jews never burned, but always buried, their dead.⁶ Only in exceptional cases, to aggravate capital punishment, in times of war or epidemics, or to prevent dishonoring by pagan enemies,⁷ were corpses consigned to the flames. Cremation in the Old Testament was regarded either as a disgrace inflicted on the body, or as a sign of extreme necessity. Certain passages which have been quoted to prove that cremation was customary among the Chosen People, refer to the burning of aromatic spices at burials.⁸

⁶ Cfr. Gen. XXIII, 19; XXV, 9 sq.; XLVII, 29; XLIX, 30 sq.; L, 2, 25.

⁷ Gen. XXXVIII, 24; Lev. XXI, 9; Am. VI, 10; 1 Kings XXXI, 12.

⁸ Jer. XXXIV, 5; 2 Chr. XVI, 14; cfr. J. Benzinger, Hebräische Archäologie, 2nd ed., Tübingen 1907, pp. 127 sqq.

Christianity followed the Jewish practice of burying the dead, and ever since the earliest days of the Church, inhumation was looked upon as a specifically Christian and cremation as a specifically pagan custom,⁹ though the New Testament contains no express prohibition of the latter.¹⁰

⁹ Minucius Felix, Octavius, c. 11: “[Christians] both execrate pyres and condemn burials by fire.” (Migne, P. L., III, 267).

¹⁰ John XII, 7; cfr. D. A. Petrakakos, Die Toten im Recht, Leipsic 1905.

It is recorded that, in times of persecution, the early Christians risked their lives to recover the bodies of their martyrs, that they might be buried with the sacred rites of the Church. The pagans, to destroy faith in the resurrection of the body, often cast the corpses of martyred Christians into the flames. Minucius Felix thus adverts to their belief that cremation makes resurrection impossible: “Nor do we fear, as you suppose, any harm from [this mode of disposing of the body], but we adhere to the old and better custom of inhumation.”¹¹

¹¹ Octavius, c. 34: “Nor, as you believe, do we fear any harm from burial, but we follow the ancient and better custom of interment.” (Migne, P. L., III, 347).—A council held at Paderborn (Germany), in 785, decreed (can. 7): “Whoever cremates a corpse according to pagan custom, shall be punished with death.” And again (can. 22): “The dead bodies of the Christian Saxons should be brought into the cemeteries of the Church and not buried in the mounds of the heathen.” (Hefele, Konziliengeschichte, Vol. III, 2nd ed., pp. 636 sq.). The Order of the “Teutonic Knights” forbade the Prussians in the peace treaty of 1249 to burn the corpses of their dead. (Voigt, Geschichte Preussens, Vol. II, p. 626).

It is only of late years that in some countries cremation has been substituted for burial, and crematories with rooms for the storage of urns containing the ashes of the dead have begun to take the place of Christian cemeteries.

b) The reasons given for cremation are partly esthetic, partly psychological, partly economic, and partly hygienic.

α) From the standpoint of esthetics,¹² the cremationists contend, it is more becoming to the beauty of the human body to be dissolved by fire, which is a pure and cleansing element, than to rot in the earth, which is unclean and soiled. Cremation furthermore makes it possible to realize the poetic idea of preserving a genuine memorial of the departed in the form of their own ashes, kept in an urn, which serves as a decorative object.

¹² Cfr. J. Grimm, “Ueber das Verbrennen,” in Kleinere Schriften, Vol. II, Berlin 1865, pp. 211–313; K. Th. Schulz, Eine neue Bestattungsart, Berlin 1897, pp. 61 sqq.

In answer to this argument we may say that the process of cremation, while it is more rapid than that of natural decomposition, is by no means more attractive or more esthetic. The poetic idea referred to is merely a sentimental apotheosis of human nature, and its object can be more effectively realized by honoring the grave in which the mortal remains of the departed rest.

β) From the point of view of psychology this argument is advanced: It is repugnant to natural sentiment, and therefore inhuman, to commit the body of a departed relative or friend to a process of decay which cannot be visualized without a shudder. Cremation excludes the horrors of inhumation and is therefore to be preferred.

We answer: Aside from the fact that in a properly constructed grave the corpse does not become the prey of worms, human sentiment is repelled even more by the brutal destruction of the bodily remains of a relative or friend by fire, whereas, on the other hand, it is consoling to be able to visit the grave where a departed relative or friend has found his last resting-place after the labors and trials of life.

γ) In the interest of agriculture it is asserted that inhumation injures the public good by withdrawing a vast amount of soil from cultivation and confining a number of chemical elements indispensable to vegetation in a place where they cannot be utilized, thus gradually bringing about a lack of food, whereas cremation prevents this danger.

This argument is as unconvincing as the other two. The ground devoted to the burial of the dead in any given country is extremely small in proportion to the total area of arable land. Moreover, the chemical elements into which the body is dissolved in the grave are not lost, but for the most part absorbed by the ground water, which redistributes them in every direction.

δ) The principal argument adduced in favor of cremation is that derived from hygiene. It is claimed that cemeteries are a constant menace to the public health because of the poisonous gases they exhale into the atmosphere and the decayed substances with which they infect the ground water, which feeds the wells and springs of the vicinity.

This specious argument is refuted by the testimony of competent experts, who declare that there is no danger whatever to the public health from properly kept cemeteries. No poisonous gases arise, and if any should arise, they would be instantly dissipated by the fresh air. Poisonous infiltration of the ground water is improbable, and we know of no case where it was ever proved that a well was poisoned by infiltration from a burial ground. Neither has it ever been demonstrated that an epidemic started from a cemetery, or that cemeteries, of which there are so many in or near our cities and towns, are a menace to health.¹³ If such a danger were ever shown to exist, it could easily be obviated by the proper construction of coffins and tombs and the rational treatment of corpses. The danger of burying apparently dead persons can be avoided by legally enforced autopsy.

¹³ J. Rochard, “La Crémation,” in the Revue des Deux Mondes, Vol. XCVIII (1890), pp. 916–944; G. Cornet, Die Tuberkulose, Vienna, 1899, pp. 29 sq., 40.

So much for the negative side of the question. Positively, it can be shown that inhumation is the best and simplest means of disposing of the mortal remains of the dead. It has been practiced from most ancient times and appeals to human sentiment as eminently decent and proper. Cremation, on the contrary, runs counter to that sentiment, and is, moreover, impractical. In the first place, crematories and columbaria would withdraw nearly as much soil from agriculture as burial grounds. Second, they are costly to erect and to operate. Third, cremation makes the post-mortem examination of corpses for medical and judicial purposes impossible, or at least extremely difficult, as some crimes cannot be detected by an analysis of the ashes after the corpse is burnt.¹⁴ Inhumation has this further advantage over cremation that it makes possible the disinterment of a corpse long after death in case a suspicion of foul play arises where no one thought of it at the time.

¹⁴ Cfr. F. Goppelsröder, Ueber Feuerbestattung, Mühlhausen 1890.

It is asserted that cremation can at least be justified in exceptional cases, for instance, during dangerous epidemics or on the battlefield in time of war. But even this is doubtful. When an epidemic rages, the corpses of the victims can be more rapidly buried than burned, and to compel an army to drag along crematories would be an undue burden.

3. The Catholic Church forbids her children to enrol in societies established for the purpose of promoting cremation, or to direct that their own bodies or those of fellow-Catholics be burned after death. She has issued this prohibition for the reason that she looks upon cremation as a detestable abuse.¹⁵ This opinion is based, not upon any dogmatic teaching concerning the human body and its resurrection,—for God can collect and revitalize ashes as easily as dust,—¹⁶ nor on the impossibility of performing the burial rite over the remains of a burnt corpse, which is quite often done for victims of conflagrations, but mainly on the anti-Christian, anti-ecclesiastical, materialistic, and pagan tendency of the cremation movement, and on the human, and particularly the Christian sentiment towards the mortal remains of man. It is repugnant to human nature to interfere arbitrarily and violently with the natural process of decay which the body undergoes after death, and in the second place the faithful Catholic, who regards Christ’s death and grave as the pattern of his own demise and burial, can ask nothing better than that his mortal remains be buried as the sacred body of the Redeemer was buried, like “a seed sowed in God’s acre, to mature in glory on the day of the resurrection.”¹⁷

¹⁵ “Detestabilis abusus;” S. C. Offic., d. d. 19 May, 1886; d. d. 15 Dec., 1886; d. d. 27 July, 1892 (Denzinger-Bannwart, n. 1863 sq.).

¹⁶ Matth. XXII, 29.—Minucius Felix says (Octavius, c. 34): “Every body, whether it dries into dust, or is dissolved into moisture, or is compressed into ashes, or is attenuated into vapor, is withdrawn from us, but is reserved for God in the custody of the elements.” (Migne, P. L., III, 347). And again

¹⁷ “Saat gesäet von Gott, am Tage der Garben zu reifen,” as the poet Klopstock puts it beautifully.—Cfr. Matth. XXVII, 58 sqq.; John V, 28 sq.; XI, 23; XIX, 38 sqq.; 1 Cor. XV, 24 sqq.; 2 Cor. V, 10; Phil. III, 21.—St. Augustine, De Civ. Dei, l. I, c. 13: “These authorities (Matth. XXVI, 10–13; John XIX, 38–42) do not teach that any sensation inheres in corpses, but signify that the bodies of the dead also pertain to God’s providence, to which even such offices of piety are pleasing, in order to build up faith in the resurrection.” (Migne, P. L., XLI, 27).—St. Gregory the Great says (Moral., l. IV, c. 27, n. 52): “For what else is it to bury than to conceal?” (P. L., LXXV, 633).

“What principally determined the Church to forbid cremation,” says Msgr. Meyenberg, “was the observation that the advocates of this practice everywhere employed it as a means to undermine belief in the resurrection of the dead and to de-Christianize public life.”¹⁸

¹⁶ (op. cit., c. 11): “As though every body, even if it is withheld from the flames, is not nevertheless resolved into earth by years and ages, and as though it mattered whether wild beasts tear it apart, seas consume it, earth covers it, or flame carries it off, since for corpses every burial is good if they feel, and if they do not feel, it is a remedy by the very speed of destruction.” (P. L., III, 267 sq.).

¹⁸ Schweizerische Kirchenzeitung, Lucerne, 1909, p. 53.

The question of cremation does not involve an ecclesiastical dogma, nor is it a purely denominational question, but one in which all Christian churches should be equally interested for the sake of the preservation of an ancient Christian custom which cannot be abolished without grave scandal to the faithful.

It will not do to say that cremation is purely voluntary and must be conceded as a part of that religious freedom of which our age is so proud, for the advocates of cremation aim at making it compulsory, and they are not a religious sect. nor is cremation a religious rite. What they demand is not tolerance, but the enforcement of their impious and un-christian ideas.

The Holy Office has decided¹⁹ that if a corpse has been cremated, not by order of the deceased, but at the command of others,²⁰ it may be buried with religious honors, provided the exsequies do not take place at the crematory and no scandal is given. Scandal need not be feared if it is publicly known that the deceased did not wish his body to be cremated. The new Code re-inforces the law that if a Catholic, while living, com- mands his body to be cremated, he is to be denied ecclesiastical burial.²¹ If any one compelled a priest to give such a person ecclesiastical burial, he would be ipso facto excommunicated.²² Formal co-operation in the act of cremation, be it by command or counsel, is unconditionally forbidden, though material co-operation may be tolerated under certain conditions.²³

¹⁹ Dec. 15, 1886.

²⁰ “Alienâ voluntate.”

²¹ C. I. C., can. 1240, 1, 5.

²² Ibid., can. 2339.

²³ Decree of the Holy Office, July 27, 1892.

Lehmkuhl lays down the following rules for the guidance of Catholics:

a) It is not permitted actively to promote cremation, or to render it lawful, even for non-Catholics, by a positive concession, because it is objectively bad, saltem ex adiunctis. It is a rite pertaining to religion and consequently subject to the judgment of the Church, who has declared it illicit.

b) It is, however, permissible, for an adequate cause (ex causa proportionate gravi) to permit cremation negatively, i. e., not to prevent others from performing it.²⁴

²⁴ Lehmkuhl, Theol. Mor., Vol. II, 11th ed., p. 676, 6.

4. The section of corpses for juridical or scientific purposes is permissible because of its importance for the study of medicine and for the benefit of suffering humanity.²⁵ It goes with- out saying, however, that corpses used for this purpose must be properly interred and must not be abused. To treat human remains (whole corpses or portions thereof, bones, skeletons, etc.) irreverently is a sin, nay, under certain conditions, it may even be a sacrilege. The violation and desecration of graves and the scattering of human remains has always been regarded as a crime and severely punished.

²⁵ Cfr. K. Gegenbaur, Lehrbuch der Anatomie, 6th ed., Leipsic 1895; F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheol., pp. 490 sqq.; J. Donat, S. J., Die Freiheit der Wissenschaft, Innsbruck 1910, pp. 214 sq. (English edition, The Freedom of Science, New York 1913).

Pope Boniface VIII, in his oft-quoted decretal,²⁶ did not forbid the anatomic section of corpses, but only the abuse, which had originated during the crusades, of separating the flesh from the bones in order to make possible the transfer of the latter to the home of the deceased.²⁷

²⁶ Extrav. Com., Cap. I l. 3, tit. 6: “Those who disembowel the bodies of the dead and inhumanly boil them so that, the bones having been separated from the flesh, they may carry them to be buried in their own land, are excommunicated by the fact itself.”

²⁷ Cfr. E. Michael, S. J., Geschichte des deutschen Volkes, Vol. III, p. 433 sq.; Lex, Das kirchliche Begräbnisrecht, pp. 229 sqq.

It has been decided that the hearts of dead persons may be preserved in jars or urns.²⁸ For the honor of humanity let us assume that the horrible crime of the sexual violation of corpses is committed only by insane persons.²⁹

²⁸ S. R. C., d. d. 11 Feb., 1898: “The preservation is carried out in this way: the heart is enclosed in a glass vessel, ordinarily placed in a visible place and among flowers. May this practice be continued? Resp.: Affirmatively, provided that the preservation described does not take place in a sacred place.”

²⁹ Maschka, Handbuch der gerichtlichen Medizin, Vol. III, 192.

READINGS.—J. P. Gury, Comp. Theol. Mor., Vol. II, n. 790–796.—F. X. Linsenmann, Lehrbuch der Moraltheologie, pp. 487 sqq.—L. Ruland, Die Geschichte der kirchlichen Leichenfeier, Ratisbon 1901, pp. 2 sqq.—L. Henry, L’Inhumation et la Créma- tion, Louvain 1876.—A. Besi and E. Holzinger von Weidich, Die Beerdigung und Verbrennung der Leichen, Ratisbon 1889.—G. Hassl, Gottesacker oder Leichenofen? Augsburg 1898.—P. Winkler, Verbrennen oder Begraben? Innsbruck 1902.—F. Probst, Die Exequien, Tübingen 1856.—E. Berardi, De Crematione Cadaverum, Bruges 1904.—Wm. Devlin, S.J., art. “Cremation” in the Catholic Encyclopedia, Vol. IV, pp. 481–483.—H. Noldin, S.J., Summa Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 742 sqq.—A. Lehmkuhl, S.J., Theol. Mor., Vol. II, pp. 673 sqq.—B. L. Conway, C.S.P., The Ethics and History of Cremation, N. Y. 1923.

5. Sacraments ministered to sinners deprived of the senses, who gave no signs of contrition, are not a title to ecclesiastical burial.

Deposition and degradation are most grave penalties, very closely akin to suspension, and are accustomed to be assimilated to it, because they affect clerics alone and induce privation of ecclesiastical rights and benefices. Nevertheless they are not properly censures, because they are inflicted by reason only of penalty, not of medicine.

§ 1. Deposition, with obligations arising from the order received and clerical privileges remaining firm, carries with it both suspension from office and inability for any offices, dignities, benefices, pensions, functions in the Church, and also privation of those which the guilty person has, even if he was ordained under their title.

§ 2. But in this last case, if the cleric truly needs it, let the Ordinary, according to his charity, take care to provide for him in the better way possible, lest he be compelled to beg with dishonor of the clerical state.

§ 3. The penalty of deposition cannot be inflicted except in cases expressed by law (Can. 2303).

Cf. can. 2314, § 1, n. 2, on delicts against the faith and the unity of the Church; 2320, 2322, n. 1, 2328, on delicts against religion; 2350, § 1, 2354, § 2, on delicts against life, liberty, etc.; 2379, on delicts against the obligations proper to the clerical or religious state; 2394, n. 2, 2401, on delicts in the conferral, reception, and loss of dignities.

§ 1. Degradation contains in itself deposition, perpetual privation of ecclesiastical habit, and reduction of the cleric to the lay state.

§ 2. This penalty can be brought only on account of a delict expressed in law, or if a cleric, already deposed and deprived of clerical habit, still goes on giving grave scandal for a year.

§ 3. One kind is verbal or edictal, which is imposed by sentence alone, yet so that it has all its juridical effects immediately without any execution; another is real, if the solemnities prescribed in the Roman Pontifical are observed (Can. 2305).

§ 1. The bodies of the faithful departed are to be buried, their cremation being reproved.

§ 2. If someone has in any way commanded that his body be cremated, it is illicit to execute this will; and if it has been attached to a contract, testament, or any other act, it is to be regarded as if not attached (Can. 1203).

Ecclesiastical burial consists in the transfer of the corpse to the church, the funeral rites celebrated over it in the same, and its deposition in a place legitimately deputed for the faithful departed to be laid away (Can. 1204).

§ 1. The corpses of the faithful are to be buried in a cemetery which, according to the rites handed down in approved liturgical books, has been blessed, whether by a solemn or simple blessing given by those of whom in can. 1155, 1156.

§ 2. Corpses are not to be buried in churches, unless there is question of the corpses of residential Bishops, Abbots or Prelates nullius to be buried in their own church, or of the Roman Pontiff, royal persons, or Cardinals of the Holy Roman Church (Can. 1205).

§ 1. Those who have died without baptism are not to be admitted to ecclesiastical burial.

§ 2. Catechumens who die without baptism by no fault of their own are to be counted among the baptized.

§ 3. All baptized persons are to be given ecclesiastical burial, unless they are expressly deprived of the same by law (Can. 1239).

Question 1. Who, in particular, are to be deprived of ecclesiastical burial?

Resp. § 1. The following are deprived of ecclesiastical burial, unless before death they have given some signs of repentance:

1°. Notorious apostates from the Christian faith, or those notoriously addicted to a heretical or schismatical sect, or to a masonic sect or other societies of the same kind;

2°. Excommunicated or interdicted persons after a condemnatory or declaratory sentence;

3°. Those who have killed themselves by deliberate design;

4°. Those dead in a duel or from a wound received from it;

5°. Those who have commanded that their body be handed over to cremation;

6°. Other public and manifest sinners.

§ 2. When some doubt occurs in the aforesaid cases, let the Ordinary be consulted, if time permits; if the doubt remains, let the corpse be handed over to ecclesiastical burial, yet so that scandal be removed (Can. 1240). - Cf. can. 2260, § 2; 2275, n. 4; 2350, § 2.

Ecclesiastical burial is not to be denied if the Parish Priest alone is witness of the repulse and impenitence of the dying person. Indeed rather let him himself take care to remain with the dying person without witnesses when he doubts concerning his conversion, and let him try to bring him to confession, and, if he cannot dispose him, let him conceal this. - Cf. Alberti, De Sepultura Ecclesiastica.

And since ecclesiastical burial is part of the communion of saints, the reason is clear why all these are to be deprived of it; nor are those dying without baptism to be admitted to it, except catechumens, of whom above.

Question 2. What does this denial of ecclesiastical burial import?

Resp. To one excluded from ecclesiastical burial there are also to be denied both any funeral Mass, even anniversary, and other public funeral offices (Can. 1241).

Question 3. Can the corpse of some non-Catholic ever be buried in a Catholic cemetery?

Resp. Concerning this matter it is thus held in the Second Plenary Council of Baltimore, n. 389: "According to the mind of the Apostolic See, it is tolerated that in family tombs, namely those which are built as private and peculiar for Catholic families of laymen, the bodies also of non-Catholic blood relatives and relatives by marriage be entombed." But what comes here under family tombs is not easy to define; but both from the word are built, and from common interpretation, a family tomb seems to be a certain crypt (vault) decently adorned, and not some simple part of the earth (a lot) surrounded by marble stones and planted with flowers or shrubs. But that must carefully be attended to, as is clear from a recent declaration of the Congregation of the Holy Office, namely, that this tolerance of the Apostolic See is not positive and absolute, but merely passive for avoiding greater evils. - Cf. Amer. Eccl. Rev., Vol. 1, pp. 113, 266 and following.

Question 4. Can the corpse of some Catholic departed ever be buried in a non-Catholic cemetery?

Resp. By strict law this was prohibited by the Fathers of the First Plenary Council in these words: "We do not will ecclesiastical rites to be employed in the burial of the faithful whenever their bodies are buried in cemeteries of sects; or even in profane cemeteries, when Catholic cemeteries are present." Nevertheless, lest the minds of non-Catholics be alienated from the Church, the rigor of that law was tempered both by the Second Plenary Council and especially by the Third Plenary Council, where n. 318 it is established thus:

"Therefore for guarding against these evils, and for removing all ambiguity from the words of the Fathers: when there is question of the burial of those who were converted to the faith, and whose surviving non-Catholics have a domestic plot in another cemetery; or also of those Catholics who likewise before the law was brought had their own plot, or certainly without any fraud acquired one after the law, we declare that in these cases it is licit for ecclesiastical rites to be employed, whether at home or in church, as often as this has not been interdicted by the Bishop for grave reasons; and we declare besides that the correction of the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide concerning the niche to be blessed, and attached to the aforesaid decree, is to be observed also in these cases. These cases excepted, it will never be licit for a rector of souls to employ the said rites in the burial of the faithful in another cemetery, unless by the express permission of the Ordinary."

Question 5. Is it licit to give ecclesiastical burial to the burned ashes of some Catholic departed?

Resp. Negatively, as is openly gathered from the recent Decree concerning cremations of corpses, which was given on the day 19 May 1886 by the Sacred Congregation of the Supreme Roman and Universal Inquisition, and then was approved and confirmed by the Supreme Pontiff Leo XIII, who besides willed that the Ordinaries of places "take care that Christ's faithful be opportunely instructed concerning the detestable abuse of burning human bodies, and that with all their strength they deter from it the flock entrusted to them." And the same seems to have to be said of the more recent form of destroying corpses which is called desiccation. But from another Decree given on the day 15 Dec. 1886, as often as there is question of those whose bodies are subjected to cremation not by their own will but by another's, the rites and suffrages of the Church can be employed both at home and in Church, but not all the way to the place of cremation, with scandal removed. But scandal can also be removed if it becomes known that cremation was not chosen by the proper will of the deceased.

Cf. Acta S. Sedis, vol. 19, p. 46 and vol. 25, p. 63. - Amer. Eccl. Review, vol. 4, pp. 15 and following, and vol. 12, p. 499. The same Sacred Congregation declared on 27 July 1892: "it is never licit to cooperate in cremation by mandate or counsel. But material cooperation can sometimes be tolerated provided that: 1°. Cremation is not held as a protest-sign of the masonic sect; 2°. Nothing is contained in it which of itself directly and uniquely expresses reprobation of Catholic doctrine and approbation of the sect; 3°. Nor is it established that officials and workers are bound or called to the work in contempt of the Catholic religion. Besides, although in these cases they are to be left in good faith, they are nevertheless always to be admonished not to intend to cooperate in cremation."

Where the civil government authoritatively hands over the corpses of the dead to cremation, without the deceased, while they lived, having given consent to this, and without their relatives having in any way sought cremation, the Sacred Congregation de Propaganda Fide permitted that in the cited cases funeral ceremonies could be performed with the customary ceremonies in the cemetery. 26 Jan. 1911. - Cf. Nouv. Rev. Théol., v. 43, p. 296. - Analecta Ecclesias., an. 1911, p. 58.¹

¹ Cf. Addenda, p. 1153, n. 129.

Question 6. Are amputated members of Catholics to be buried in a sacred place?

Resp. Affirmatively, according to the response of the Holy Office, 3 Aug. 1897: "Hence, if it can be done, let some small space of earth be deputed in the proper garden attached to the house of the hospitals for these members to be buried, after it has been blessed."

Question 7. "In what way ought the parish priest or priest conduct himself who, called by a man (or Catholic woman) placed in the article of death and already joined with an infidel by a civil bond, finds him almost destitute of senses? When the parish priest has excited him to contrition and has absolved him under condition, can he also admit him to Ecclesiastical burial?"

Resp. In these or similar cases, signs of returning to one's right mind having been made known, ecclesiastical burial can be given, yet with ecclesiastical pomps and solemnities of funerals forbidden. "If in some case extraordinary circumstances concur, let the parish priest consult the Ordinary, and stand by his mandates." S. Off., 6 July 1898.

Question 8. What ought Ordinaries, parish priests, and Superiors to beware of?

Resp. Let the Ordinaries of places, parish priests, and Superiors, to whom it pertains, beware lest in cemeteries epitaphs, funeral praises, and ornaments of monuments bear before themselves anything discordant with Catholic religion and piety (Can. 1211).

This prescription of the greatest moment must be carefully guarded, lest empty ceremonies and worldly praises gradually mingle themselves with the holy rites of the Church.

I. QUESTION I. What is suspension, and of how many kinds is it? ANSWER. It is a privation of the use and exercise of any office and dignity, if it be regarded absolutely. But at present it is an ecclesiastical censure by which a cleric is deprived of the use of an office or of a benefice. It is divided into that which is from the office only, into another which is from the benefice only, and into that which is from both. Moreover one is from law, another from man. By the name of office is understood every spiritual power, whether of order, or of jurisdiction, or of administration ecclesiastical. But by the name of benefice comes the right of perceiving ecclesiastical proceeds by force of a spiritual title. Suspension is also divided into temporal and perpetual. The former is for a month, for a year, for a biennium, and so forth; the latter is limited by no duration. Partial suspension is subdivided into several other partial ones. For a priest is sometimes suspended from the celebration of Mass alone, sometimes from hearing confessions, sometimes simply from his Order. A bishop can be suspended from the collation either of the tonsure alone, or of the presbyterate, or of Order absolutely. Similarly in a benefice a man is sometimes suspended from the daily distributions, or from half the part of the fruits; and the same can be done in jurisdiction. For the form of suspension no words are designated in law, but those are employed which manifest the superior's will.

II. Those who violate a suspension absolutely sin mortally. One suspended from an Order, if he exercise it, besides the mortal sin contracts irregularity. Acts nevertheless exercised by one suspended are valid, although unlawful, if they be acts of Order, not of jurisdiction. But he who is suspended from jurisdiction, if he be one to be shunned, then exercises acts of jurisdiction invalidly, because suspension of jurisdiction is an actual privation of it. One suspended from an Order is not by that very fact suspended from jurisdiction.

III. QUESTION II. Whether one suspended from an office be suspended from a benefice, or conversely? ANSWER. One suspended from a benefice is not by that very fact suspended from the office. Wherefore he can and is bound to celebrate and to recite the other divine offices, because the penalty does not exempt from the burden. And although the office be on account of the benefice, yet in punishment of the delict the guilty party can be deprived of the fruits of the benefice, the burden of serving the Church remaining. One suspended from an office, even a most grave one, is not by that very fact suspended from the benefice, as the more probable opinion teaches.

IV. QUESTION III. What are the effects of suspension from an office, from jurisdiction, from a benefice? ANSWER. One suspended absolutely from an office remains deprived of all use of Order and of jurisdiction, and of any ministry whatsoever which can be exercised by a cleric alone. Wherefore he cannot administer the sacraments, celebrate, excommunicate, absolve, impart indulgences, approve for confessions, exercise pontifical functions, nor perform the other ministries which depend upon Order. It is nevertheless certain that if he be suspended from Order only, he is not suspended from jurisdiction.

V. Suspension from jurisdiction passed absolutely deprives one of all use of spiritual jurisdiction, and of an act of Order which cannot be exercised without jurisdiction, as the collation of Order and sacramental absolution. But one thus suspended can celebrate and minister the other sacraments; unless nevertheless he should administer them by office as a parish priest, because then he would exercise an act of jurisdiction of which he is deprived. If a man be suspended from a determinate part of jurisdiction, he is not suspended from another; as if a parish priest be suspended from hearing confessions, he can celebrate and administer the other sacraments.

VI. Suspension of Order passed absolutely and simply deprives one of every act of any Order whatsoever, both major and minor, because an indefinite proposition in moral matter is equivalent to a universal one. Similarly he who is suspended from the collation of Orders can confer no Order. I omit other little questions, whose decision depends upon the formula by which the suspension is prescribed.

VII. QUESTION IV. For what cause can suspension be passed? ANSWER. It cannot be passed for a venial sin, as has been said above. For suspension by its own nature is a grave penalty, which cannot by right be inflicted save for a grave fault. Obnoxious to suspension are clerics even marked with the first tonsure. Censures passed in law absolutely against clerics do not comprehend Cardinals and bishops. Suspension can be passed directly against the community itself, and indirectly against the members. It does not nevertheless affect distributively the individual persons as regards their particular ministries, but according as they constitute one body, and according to the offices and ministries common to them.

VIII. Suspension can be hindered by a lawful appeal interposed at a congruous time, as has been said above of an appeal from censures. The appeal nevertheless ought to precede the suspension itself, that it may hinder it, if it be a suspension from office and from entrance into the Church, as is had in chapter Is qui 20 on sentences of excommunication in the Sixth. Any other suspension is hindered by a subsequent appeal.

IX. A suspension passed for a time ceases of itself, that time having elapsed, without absolution. From a suspension passed by man he can absolve who passed it. From a suspension passed by law the Ordinary of the suspended person can absolve, or his Vicar. From a suspension reserved to the Pope, if it proceed from an occult delict, a bishop can absolve his own subjects, if it have not been brought to the contentious forum.

X. QUESTION V. What do deposition and degradation signify? ANSWER. Often deposition and degradation are taken for the same; authors nevertheless distinguish the one from the other. Simple deposition they describe in these words: It is a penalty depriving a cleric of office and benefice in perpetuity by ordinary right irremissibly. Degradation is divided into verbal and real. Each deprives a cleric in perpetuity of office and benefice; but the former retains the privilege of the canon and of the forum; the latter utterly loses it. A cleric nevertheless struck with either verbal or real degradation is bound to recite the canonical hours, if he be constituted in sacred Orders, nor can he validly contract matrimony.

XI. Verbal degradation was formerly made for adultery, theft, homicide, and other graver crimes. According to the present-day discipline of the Church only the more atrocious crimes are struck with degradation. The crimes expressed in canon law for which a cleric ought to be struck with real degradation are heresy, the falsification of apostolic letters, sodomy, and conspiracy against his own bishop with incorrigibility acceding. Several things are wont to be said of the solemnity to be observed in real degradation, which do not pertain to our purpose.

Mr. B., a firm believer in modern methods of public sanitation, has made provision in his will that after his death his body shall be cremated. May he receive the last Sacraments and Christian burial, and why is the Church so opposed to cremation?

Answer. All civilized nations, both ancient and modern, have regarded the burial of the dead as a religious rite. In ancient Rome, it took precedence over every other service, whether public or private. The Roman soldier could demand leave of absence from the army, not only to bury his dead, but also for the feast of the purification of the family, called feriae denicales, which occurred nine days after the burial. Not only were the last rites of the dead considered religious or sacred, but the burial place also, by virtue of the laws, enjoyed a religious character. It was quite natural, therefore, that, in the nascent Church, the Christians, professing a different religion from the Romans, should also differentiate themselves from the pagans in the manner and place of burying their dead. The common practice in pagan Rome, at the beginning of the Christian era, was to burn the bodies of the dead. This had not been the ancient custom, even among the Romans, and at the dawn of Christianity there still prevailed among them the practice of cutting off a bone from the corpse, or rescuing one from the fire, in order to deposit it in the earth. The reason for this was that the burial of the ashes of the dead after cremation did not render the burial place sacred; it acquired a religious or sacred character and was brought under the protection of the laws only by the burial of some part or bone of the body, that had not been cremated. Each family had its own burial place, restricted to the parents and children and brothers and sisters, and a few intimate friends and favorite freedmen. The idea of a general burial place for all the inhabitants of a town or district was unknown to the ancients. The indiscriminate burial of friends and foes, relatives and strangers, in one monument where their ashes would be mingled together, was especially abhorred by the people and severely punished by the law. It was to be expected, therefore, that the Christians, who believed in the resurrection of the body as one of the great articles of the new faith, should have had, from the very beginning, a great religious care for the bodies of their dead and for all the rites attending their burial. They adhered to the more ancient custom of the Romans, as well as of the Jews, of burying their dead in the ground. They detested the practice, prevailing at that time among the Romans, of burning the bodies of the dead, just as they abhorred the other religious rites and practices of the pagans. Minucius Felix, in the third century, says that the Christians execrate the funeral pile and condemn burial by fire. “We follow,” he says, “the ancient and better plan of burying in the ground.”

From the early writers and Fathers of the Church, we gather many reasons why the Christians preferred rather to bury the bodies of their dead in the ground than to burn them. Burning the dead was a pagan religious rite of the time, from which, as from all the religious rites of the pagans, the Christians wished to dissociate themselves. One of the central truths of the Christian faith was the resurrection of the body. Cremation seemed to deny this doctrine. The Saviour was buried in a tomb, from which He rose triumphant over death. The disciple desired to be buried after the manner of his Master, hoping to rise again in the body, like his Master, from the grave. The immortality of the soul and the resurrection of the body were two great beacon lights that illumined the darkness and the sufferings of the first Christians. Burning the body of the dead seemed to them a confession of the total annihilation of the whole man. It shocked their sense of reverence and affection for the dead, but more especially their religious sense. And thus, from the very beginning of Christianity, burying the bodies of the dead in the ground became intimately associated with the Christian faith, and all the rites and ceremonies of the Church that accompany the burial of the dead, the prayers of the Missal and of the Ritual have grown up around and been developed according to the custom of burying the dead in the ground. When we have the bodies of our dead near us we are reminded to pray and offer sacrifice for them, we erect monuments over them that stimulate our piety and proclaim aloud our belief in the resurrection of the body and life everlasting. The custom fosters reverence for the dead, whose bodies have been sanctified by so many Sacraments. It is not as repugnant to our natural instincts to allow our dead to return to dust by the slow processes of tender mother earth, as to violently burn and destroy them by fire. These are but a few of the reasons why the Church, throughout the ages, has preferred to bury the bodies of her children in the earth rather than to destroy them by fire.

Cremation does not necessarily deny any truth of revelation. It does not necessarily imply a denial either of the immortality of the soul or of the resurrection of the body. Whether the body returns to dust slowly by the action of the forces of the earth, or quickly by the action of the fire, is, in itself, a matter of indifference.

The Church permits her missionaries, as in India, where cremation is the ordinary method of disposing of the bodies of the dead, to remain passive in cases where they know that the bodies of neophytes are to be burned. (Cong. de prop. fide, Sept. 27, 1884.)

But circumstances may add a very definite character to something that is quite indifferent in itself. And this is the case with cremation, generally speaking. The Church is cognizant of the fact, that the cremation of human bodies, to-day, is not only a departure from the time-honored and world-wide Christian custom of burying in the ground, but that it is meant, as a rule, to be a protest against the Christian faith, The promoters of cremation are endeavoring to rehabilitate the ancient pagan custom of disposing of the bodies of the dead in order to put an end to Christian cemeteries and Christian burial rites and practices, in order to destroy the powerful evidence they bear to the Christian faith, and the influence they exert in promoting Christian piety. By cremating the human body, they wish to signify the total annihilation of man by death. Thus cremation becomes, per accidens, a profession of heresy and an attack on the Christian faith. Hence the Church forbids it. In particular circumstances, as, v. g., during an epidemic, the Church makes no objection to the burning of the human body. The only argument that can be urged in favor of cremation is the argument founded on the consideration of the public health. But the public health is already amply protected by the laws of the Church regarding the location of cemeteries and the manner of burying the body.

The Congregation of the Holy Office has repeatedly, in the last twenty-five years, issued decrees prohibiting the cremation of the bodies of the dead. The following is a summary of these decrees:

It is forbidden for Catholics to belong to any society or organization whose object is the cremation of the bodies of the dead; and if such society be in any way affiliated to the Masons, its members fall under the ban of excommunication.

It is forbidden for a Catholic to order his own body, or the body of any one else, burned; a Catholic may sometimes co-operate, materialiter, in cremating the bodies of the dead, either as officials or as workmen, if such co-operation is not desired precisely because the officials or workmen are Catholics, and as a sign of contempt for the Catholic faith and if the cremation contain no profession of Masonry.

It is not allowed to give the last Sacraments to a dying man or woman, if he or she insists that after death the body shall be cremated; neither is it allowed to give the remains Christian burial, if it be known publicly that the deceased continued in this mind to the end of life.

It is not allowed to say Mass for such persons publicly or in the name of the Church, but Mass may be offered privately.

It is lawful to perform the last rites over the dead, either at their home or else in the Church, but not at the crematory, if it was not the will of the dead that his body be cremated, but the will of those in charge of the funeral, provided, of course, that all scandal be removed.

Again, it is permitted to give Christian burial to those who order that after their death their bodies shall be burned, provided they are ignorant of the Church’s prohibition; also to those who, after having made such provision in defiance of the Church’s laws, desired sincerely, before their death, to revoke the provision, but who for some valid reason were unable to do so.

This is a short synopsis of all the decrees concerning cremation, issued by the Holy Office in the last twenty-five years.

Mr. B., therefore, may not receive the Sacraments of the Church, as long as he continues in his resolve to have his body cremated, because he is in mortal sin, defying a grave law of the Church. And if it be known by the general public that he persevered to the end of his life in his resolve to have his body cremated, he can not receive Christian burial.

Since cases involving the question of burying suicides are not infrequent, it will be well to give a brief statement of the principles which must govern the priest’s procedure under such circumstances.

Christian burial, which includes the obsequies prescribed by the Church, and depositing the corpse in consegrated ground, the cemetery, constitutes a distinction in the view of the Church not only, but also of the faithful, and it can only be accorded to those who, during life and at their death, showed themselves to be true members of the Church, and therefore worthy of this distinction. This manifestly is not true of those who, of sound mind and therefore with premeditation and intention, make away with themselves, and thus not only cause sorrow to the Church, but give great scandal to the faithful. By his crime the suicide forfeits the distinction of Christian burial and it would be unjust, and would provike scandal, if he, in regard to Christian burial, were given equality with those members of the Church who depart this life in the faith and reconciled to God.

Christian burial is a privilege of the faithful also by reason of their communion with the Church, which, according to her teaching, is not terminated by death, but continues after the same. The true Catholic is in his last hour at one with the Church; he receives from her hand the last fortifying, the last consolation upon the final, decisive road. It is therefore a natural and logical consequence that those who have shown themselves unworthy of this ecclesiastical communion, be it during life by a conduct that incurs censure (and which, through the fault of the deceased, has not been removed), or be it in death, by commission of a grievous crime which the Church punishes with deprivation of Christian burial, have lost the right to such burial. Suicide is such a crime which the Church punishes with the refusal of Christian burial, in order to indicate that those who commit it cannot continue in her communion, and, also, to inspire her children with a great horror of this crime.

The Roman ritual contains the following clear and distinct directions: The parish priest ought not to be ignorant of those who by the law itself are to be excluded from ecclesiastical burial, lest he ever admit anyone to it contrary to the decrees of the sacred canons. Ecclesiastical burial is therefore denied ... to those who kill themselves through despair or anger, but not if it happens through insanity, unless (such suicides) gave signs of repentance before death.

Manifestly there is here made distinction in regard to the unfortunates who commit suicide. There are those who, in the state of insanity, of hypochondria, or of melancholy, therefore while of unsound mind, take their lives; to such unfortunates Christian burial cannot be denied, because their act was neither premeditated nor undertaken in full possession of reason, and therefore not culpable; indeed, according to the decision of the Congregation of the Holy Office (ddto. May 16, 1866), they may even be buried with solemn ceremonies.

To the other class belong those who commit suicide with design and premeditation, in a conscious and sane state of mind, in culpable despair or anger. If it is certain that the deed was done in soundness of mind, and with the full use of reason, with full knowledge and intention, then Christian burial, as any other ecclesiastical function, even the ordinary blessing of the corpse, must be denied. In this case Christian burial would manifestly be a violation of the law; it would be a weakening of Church discipline and of the religious sentiment of the faithful, who would be scandalized by such burial, as experience has shown. Nevertheless the Church, ever solicitous for the salvation of her members, uses even in regard to these iniquitous unfortunates, utmost indulgence and consideration. If such persons do not die in the commission of the deed, and if before dying they give signs of repentance, if they ask for the priest, or, perhaps, even receive the Sacraments, then the Church does not refuse them Christian burial. (Rit Rom. I. c.)

When, on the contrary, it remains doubtful, after careful inquiry into the matter, whether the deed occurred with full consciousness and in sane mind, then the suicide’s irresponsibility is presumed, because it is not supposed that anyone in sound mind and unimpaired use of reason would commit so grievous and unnatural a crime as premeditated suicide, and deal with his greatest earthly good, his life, so malevolently. In such a case the deceased may be allowed Christian burial, according to the principle: Odiosa sunt restringenda, omitting, however, solemnity and display.

If for some reasons it appears doubtful whether a suicide should be refused or allowed Christian burial, the case with detailed information should be laid before the ordinary, and his decision observed.

The principles here briefly set forth governing the burial of suicides are specifically contained in the quoted decision of the Congregation of the Holy Office, of which we will insert here, on account of their great practical significance the chief points: “Parish priests are to be admonished that in individual cases, insofar as possible, they have recourse to the Ordinary. The rule is that it is not lawful to give ecclesiastical burial to those who kill themselves through despair or anger (but not if it happens through insanity), unless before death they gave signs of repentance.

Furthermore.

1. When it is certainly established that the act arose either from anger or from despair, ecclesiastical burial must be denied and the pomp and solemnities of the funeral rites must be avoided;

2. but when insanity is certainly established, ecclesiastical burial with the solemnities of the funeral rites is to be given;

3. Yet when a doubt remains whether someone gave himself death through despair or through insanity, ecclesiastical burial may be given, but with the pomp and solemnities of the funeral rites avoided.

If these principles about the burying of suicides are rigidly observed and explained to the faithful on suitable opportunities, mistakes in the pastoral practise will not be easily made, and criticism and unpleasantness will be avoided.

Dr. Anton Brychta.

John was married outside the Church. His wife and children were Protestants. For years he did not practise his religion. When sick, a priest from a religious community was called, who heard his confession, gave him holy Viaticum and sent for the sick man's parish priest to administer Extreme Unction and to look after him in the future. Two or three months later, the sick man dies. It was arranged to have the funeral from the church; but in the death notice of an evening paper the parish priest learns that the man belonged to the Masons.

1. Must a Mason, repenting on his death-bed, give up all his paraphernalia, and make a written public statement that he renounces the lodge?

2. Was the confessor obliged to notify the parish priest of this fact?

3. Did the parish priest do right in burying this man from the church?

Answer.—In order to absolve a dying Mason, the theologians generally require that the dying Mason shall break off all communication with the Masons and that he shall hand in his formal resignation to the master of his lodge. It is never lawful for a confessor to absolve a Mason, as long as the Mason is resolved to frequent the lodge. This view is held on the authority of the Congregation of the Inquisition, which, when asked about a case like this, answered, July 5, 1837; "Juxta exposita, non licere." In some circumstances, it is even required that the Mason desiring absolution shall show a written document from the master of the lodge, acknowledging the receipt of his resignation. "Indeed, under differing circumstances it is sometimes required that a written statement from the head of this sect be produced, by which authentic testimony is given that this declaration was received." (Lehmkuhl, II, 1226).

It is generally admitted, however, that this withdrawal from the Masons may be deferred for a time, abrupta omni communicatione, atque pecuniae contributione, for very grave reasons, such as for instance, the fear of being killed or something equivalent. In this case he may defer handing in his resignation, provided that in the meantime he suffer no spiritual loss and render no aid to the lodge, and remove whatever scandal his connection with the Masons may occasion. This is gathered from the response of the Holy Office, March 7, 1883. A money loss would not be a sufficient cause for deferring one's withdrawal. We must call attention here to an answer of the Holy Office, January 18, 1896, regarding the three orders, viz.; Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias and Sons of Temperance. With regard to these three orders, the Holy Office has decided that if immediate resignation from any of these three orders would involve a serious money loss; i. e., of life insurance, then the resignation may be postponed, provided ut interim a quavis sectae communione et a quovis interventu, etiam materiali, abstineatur. In these three orders the loss incurred by immediate withdrawal would be a money loss; therefore not even material communion with the order is allowed. The loss or damage which immediate withdrawal from the Masons contemplates is death or something equivalent, and therefore material cooperation for a time or indefinitely may be justified. As such danger does not threaten in the United States, it can scarcely be urged as a reason for deferring one's resignation from the Masons.

The faculties which the Holy See grants to American bishops and through them to American priests, to absolve Masons desiring to return to the Church, have certain restrictions. 1. The penitent must resign from his lodge and must forswear the Masons. As said above, it is not always necessary that this resignation should be in writing or be publicly known. Questioned on this point, the Holy Office answered, Aug. 5, 1898, "that they abjure, or detest, the sect at least before the confessor, with the scandal repaired in the best way in which it can be done."

2. That the penitent hand over to the confessor who will forward them to the ordinary, all books, documents and regalia having relation to the order. If this is impossible, the penitent himself must destroy them.

3. The penitent must make known to the ordinary of the diocese the secret leaders and officers of the sect. Where the officers are publicly known, as in the United States, this third clause does not oblige.

The case. 1. Must a Mason, repenting on his death-bed, give up all his paraphernalia and make public a written statement that he renounced the lodge? Under ordinary circumstances, the penitent must, as said above, hand in to the master of the lodge his written resignation, and should show to the confessor a written receipt or acknowledgment of the receipt of the same from the lodge master. (Lehmkuhl, II, 1226; Génicot, II, 597, etc.) If by doing so he should place his life in jeopardy or expose himself to some other equally grave harm, then he may be excused from doing so, provided he breaks off all intercourse with the lodge and discontinues all payments of dues, etc. In the case submitted, there can scarcely be said to be any such danger in resigning from the lodge, and therefore the penitent should have sent in his written resignation. There is no obligation to make public such resignation, as the fact that the man gets the Sacraments is sufficient evidence of it. Also he should have handed over to the confessor his books, etc., dealing with masonic matters. All this the parish priest must suppose that the confessor looked after, and therefore it did not concern the parish priest.