{"id":56172,"date":"2021-04-24T16:37:21","date_gmt":"2021-04-24T21:37:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/?p=56172"},"modified":"2021-04-29T12:11:53","modified_gmt":"2021-04-29T17:11:53","slug":"i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/24\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;I want Westlife played at my funeral&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Many people outside Ireland still tend to think of Ireland as a Catholic country. However, I think that the days of identifying Irishness with Catholicism are long gone.\u00a0 I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and a report on a news program brought this home to me once again.<\/p>\n<p>The dignified <a href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/17\/church-and-state-remembrance-and-commendation-the-funeral-of-hrh-prince-philip\/\">funeral of England\u2019s Prince Philip<\/a> was widely watched on television here.\u00a0 A few days later an Irish radio station sent a reporter to the streets of Dublin to ask people their plans for their own funerals.\u00a0 You can listen to the series of interviews that took place at the link <a href=\"https:\/\/www.newstalk.com\/podcasts\/highlights-from-moncrieff\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral-funeral-songs\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>There is a good variety of opinions.\u00a0 But nobody advocates what could be described as a traditional Catholic funeral. Unsurprisingly, the interviews give a variety of opinions. At best there is a desire for some hymns.\u00a0 But most want secular music and many would chose a non-religious funeral.<\/p>\n<p>It would have been extremely rare to find anything approaching the pomp of the British\/Anglican state funeral that Prince Philip had here.\u00a0 But most people would have had a Catholic funeral until quite recently. Many non-practicing families decide to have Catholic funerals and it is a way that the parish can reach out to many who don\u2019t normally attend Mass. While many priests would see themselves as guardians of the funeral tradition, it now seems that the \u201ctraditional Irish funeral\u201d has become detached from the Catholic Church\u2019s funeral practices.<\/p>\n<p>The individualism that is common in many Western societies is now as much at home in Ireland as anywhere else. In the interviews one lady said that she wanted a funeral that would be \u201ca great memorial of me.\u201d \u00a0Another gentleman answered the question if he would have a religious funeral with \u201cGod, no.\u201d There was no mention of the Pascal Mystery (even expressed in the most rudimentary way) or of traditional Catholic prayers and customs. The choice of music was a big element of the discussion.\u00a0 Some wanted Country, some Pop, some Irish traditional music. But no one wanted the exclusively Christian music that the vast majority of funerals would have had as little as ten years ago.<\/p>\n<p>It is true that only so much can be deduced from a random sample on a radio show.\u00a0 But I believe that this provided a good example of how religious practice is on the decline here.\u00a0 Certain solemn events like a Catholic funeral can survive for a few decades after people stop attending church, but it would be na\u00efve of us to think that people will keep coming to us for their funerals indefinitely.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Many people outside Ireland still tend to think of Ireland as a Catholic country. However, I think that the days of identifying Irishness with Catholicism are long gone.\u00a0 I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and a report on a news program brought this home to me once again. The dignified funeral of England\u2019s [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":84,"featured_media":56173,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[3118,275],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-56172","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ars-celebrandi-new-ws","category-funeralsburial"],"yoast_head":"<!-- This site is optimized with the Yoast SEO plugin v27.8 - https:\/\/yoast.com\/product\/yoast-seo-wordpress\/ -->\n<title>&quot;I want Westlife played at my funeral&quot; - Home<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/24\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"&quot;I want Westlife played at my funeral&quot; - Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"Many people outside Ireland still tend to think of Ireland as a Catholic country. However, I think that the days of identifying Irishness with Catholicism are long gone.\u00a0 I was listening to the radio yesterday morning and a report on a news program brought this home to me once again. The dignified funeral of England\u2019s [&hellip;]\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/index.php\/2021\/04\/24\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Home\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:published_time\" content=\"2021-04-24T21:37:21+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2021-04-29T17:11:53+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/praytellblog.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/04\/ireland-cemetery-celtic-cross-976901.jpg\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:width\" content=\"2000\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:height\" content=\"1333\" \/>\n\t<meta property=\"og:image:type\" content=\"image\/jpeg\" \/>\n<meta name=\"author\" content=\"Fr. Neil Xavier O&#039;Donoghue\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Written by\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"Fr. Neil Xavier O&#039;Donoghue\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:label2\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data2\" content=\"2 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\\\/\\\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"Article\",\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/praytellblog.com\\\/index.php\\\/2021\\\/04\\\/24\\\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral\\\/#article\",\"isPartOf\":{\"@id\":\"https:\\\/\\\/praytellblog.com\\\/index.php\\\/2021\\\/04\\\/24\\\/i-want-westlife-played-at-my-funeral\\\/\"},\"author\":{\"name\":\"Fr. 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Since 2020 he has also served as the Executive Secretary for Liturgy to the Irish Catholic Bishops Conference. He has studied at Seton Hall University (BA, MDiv), the University of Notre Dame (MA), and St Vladimir\u2019s Orthodox Theological Seminary (MTh). He holds a Doctorate in Theology (Ph.D.) from St Patrick\u2019s College, Maynooth and is in the process of completing a second doctorate (D.D) in the Pontifical Facultad de Teolog\u00eda Redemptoris Mater in Callao, Peru. Neil has published a translation of the Confessio of St. Patrick: St. Patrick: His Confession and Other Works (Totowa, NJ, 2009), as well editing the third edition of Fredrick Edward Warren\u2019s The Liturgy and Ritual of the Celtic Church (Piscataway, NJ, 2010). In 2011 the University of Notre Dame Press published The Eucharist in Pre-Norman Ireland an adaptation of his doctoral thesis and in 2017 the Alcuin Club published his Liturgical Orientation: The Position of the President at the Eucharist. 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