Ad Resurgendum cum Christo

Ad resurgendum cum Christo regarding the burial of the deceased and the conservation of the ashes in the case of cremation: a pastoral concern and a friendly petition for All Souls Day 2016.

By Richard Rutherford, C.S.C.

Thank you, Bishop Serratelli!

First, I would like emphasize Bishop Arthur Serratelli’s pastoral perspective and guidance that accompanied dissemination of the Instruction in the U.S. He clarifies its doctrinal intent while emphasizing what North American Catholics have already achieved in shaping a Catholic culture of respect for the cremated remains of our faithful and a Funeral Liturgy that brings the full celebration of the Paschal Mystery to mark their journey in paradisum. Catholic cemeteries can be proud of their contribution to helping shape this culture.

Whatever the motivation that led Cardinal Müller and the CDF to issue the Instruction, it changes nothing for us in North America. However, by reaffirming what the US and Canadian episcopal conferences, the Appendix to the Order of Christian Funerals, and pastoral commentaries have been saying since the 1980’s, and particularly since the 1985 (Canada) and 1997 (U.S.) Indults, the Instruction does highlight the pastoral urgency to get the word out. Safe to say, I believe, the greatest pastoral concern surrounding cremation in North America is lack of knowledge. Our people are simply unaware that there is a Catholic way of marking the death of one of our faithful in faith, liturgy, and final disposition of our mortal remains. Selecting cremation does not change that.

It is helpful to recall that Catholics are not alone in our taking a faith-formed stance in face of the ever expanding secular cremation culture. Many of our Orthodox sisters and brothers, our fellow Christians of classic Reformation Churches, and traditional Jewish communities – mutatis mutandis as to theology and polity – hold in common holistic beliefs about the sacredness of human mortal remains. The value of the Instruction for me is the invitation, indeed the challenge, it brings for all of us who share this faith-formed vision to take action, to face the very real need to be pastorally better attuned to help our people appreciate that there is a Catholic way, even of cremation. What better way than to follow Bishop Serratelli’s pastoral interpretation of the Instruction and his lead.

My biggest worry concerning the implementation of the Instruction, however, is how we will manage pastorally the situations referred to by the reiteration of the Roman Canon 1184 (and CCEO, can. 876,3). As for me, after five decades of following Catholic funerary practice closely, I have not once met a Catholic who “notoriously has requested cremation and the scattering of their (sic) ashes for reasons contrary to the Catholic faith.” When I do, I can only hope that the compassionate spirit of Pope Francis will guide my pastoral judgment.

“What’s in a name….”

Along this vein and following the practice of both official Church documents and secular legal statutes, may I be bold and offer an honest friendly amendment asking that our discussion of cremation refrain from using the neologism “cremains” to refer to the mortal remains of our deceased? Why? Before I proceed to answer, I know I am “confronting” a wide-spread usage among my dearest colleagues and friends, but please realize that I do so eating “humble pie,” as I make this request. Along with many of you, when it first surfaced, I too accepted the term at face value and thought it appropriate. During the many discussions about cremation in the 1980’s-90’s in committees of the then U.S. BCL, Canadian NLO, and in dioceses across North America, I used it both colloquially and even in print. The “sins” of youth! Mea culpa! Mea maxima culpa! For the past quarter century, however, both in public and in print I have encouraged the preferred legal and canonical usage.

Why? Here’s what I intuited from my interaction with American funeral directors and especially Catholic cemetery personnel through the years and what changed my mind, as articulated by the editors of the Encyclopedia of Cremation, insiders to the world of funeral studies but well removed from Catholic concerns. The American English term “cremains,” coined by an emerging “cremation industry,” is “… an abbreviated expression and euphemism referring to ‘cremated remains,’ a neologism believed to have been invented by American funeral directors…. The invention of a new word inevitably involves the expression of new values and brings contradictory values into opposition. So, for example, it should be noted that some Catholic Church authorities have positively wished to avoid ‘cremains’….” The Archdiocese of Chicago is cited as example. Similarly, our own CCC invites its member cemetery directors and personnel as much as possible to limit the use of both “cremains” and “ashes,” for “they do not infer as suitable a term for the cremated remains of the body as does, for example, the bodily remains of the deceased human body” (In Search of a Catholic Cremation Tradition, 2009, p. 6). The Encyclopedia entry continues, “As a neologism, ‘cremains’ expresses the innovatory nature of modern cremation and of the fact that it involves a processing of human remains. ‘Ashes’, by contrast, even though they, too, are the result of a process, retain something of the echo of the traditional burial and biblical phrase of ‘ashes to ashes’ that so closely partnered ‘earth to earth’ and ‘dust to dust’. ‘Cremains’ marks something of a cultural discontinuity in burial practice.” (Emphasis here and above, mine.)

[Love, E. and Davies, D. J. (2005). Cremains. In D. Davies & L. Mates (Eds.), Encyclopedia of Cremation. Surrey, United Kingdom: Ashgate. Source.]

While we use the term “ashes” also with care and sparingly in English speaking North America, it is the common designation for cremated remains in most other modern western languages, as noted in those translations of the Instruction. Hence its usage in the title of and throughout the Instruction. More importantly, while some will quibble with details of the explanation in the Encyclopedia of Cremation, it does summarize the point that how we name something carries with it the twist of meaning the term implies. With regard to the term “cremains,” while we hope to promote a Catholic way of marking the death of our faithful when they or their grieving loved ones select cremation, it seems to me that by using language identified with cultural discontinuity we are unwittingly promoting the very secular and often commercial values we are trying to avoid. Certainly, avoiding the term will not of itself resolve the impact the proliferation of a commercial “American way of cremation” has on the information North American Catholics bring to pastoral practice. Yet, is there not a value in appreciating here too that there is something to “What’s in a name…” (Shakespeare) and that a “rose is a rose is a rose” (Gertrude Stein).

It’s what we do!

To quote Anne Bancroft as Harvey Feinstein’s ultimate Jewish mother in the film version of Torch Song Trilogy (1988) – sitting shiva at the death of her husband and upon asserting that she is moving to Florida is asked, “Why, Ma – why?” – professes, “It’s what we do!” When challenged by the ubiquitous marketing machine promoting cremation “goods” or the awkward inconsistency of our Church subtly distinguishing the mortal remains as relics of canonized saints from those of the rest of us (expectantly saints to be) or the genuine, sincere – albeit uninformed – wish to honor the wishes of their deceased Catholic family member by scattering the person’s cremated remains or encasing them in pendants as keepsakes or – you know the rest of the story, my hope is to be able to profess with empathy and sincerity, “We have a Catholic way of funeral and burial…. It’s what we do. How can I help?”