How is cremation viewed by the Catholic Church?

Catholics along with most Christians believe in the eventual resurrection of our bodies.

Cremation has been looked at as a denial of this doctrine but modern teaching recognizes that God is all powerful and cremation is not really an issue to our bodily resurrections.

The policy of the Catholic Church is: "While the Church recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the dead be observed, cremation is permitted as long as it had not been chosen for reasons contrary to Church teaching.

Cremated remains are to be treated with the same respect given to the remains of a human body, and should be buried or entombed. The scattering of cremated remains on the sea or on the ground, or keeping them in the home, is not the reverent final disposition that the Church requires.

An interesting sidelight: Scientist says cremation contributes to global warming: http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Scientist_Says_C...

For more information, see the Order of Christian Funerals: http://policy.archchicago.org/policies/bk4num700.p...

With love in Christ.

The Orthodox, though neither Roman Catholic nor Protestant, has a clearly-held longstanding position:

"The Church considers cremation to be the deliberate desecration and destruction of what God has made and ordained for us. The Church instead insists that the body be buried so that the natural physical process of decomposition may take place." [1]

Just today I was in an abbreviated "memorial service" for an Orthodox person who was cremated. There was not and will be no funeral in the Church, nor a full memorial service with all the attending prayers.

The scriptural reference to the sacredness of the body is 1Cor 6:19 "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost [which is] in you, which ye have of God, and ye are not your own? " Within Orthodoxy, our relationship with God is not just a spiritual one. He created both body and soul, took on flesh Himself, and gives us His Grace by means of the physical sacraments.

Our physicalness is an intimate and essential part of our being, and is not to be mistreated.

/Orthodox

Cremation is considered acceptable in the catholic church however, it should be performed after the body is presented at the funeral mass, and the ashes should be buried in a permanent site and the site marked, sprinkling of the ashes is not condoned.

Cremation is allowed if it's not a rejection of the resurrection of the flesh.

In the old Catholic Church I think it wasn't allowed....but I know the church has changed a lot. I hardly recognize it anymore. I guess when I came back to the Catholic Church...the church I left no longer existed. So... idk what the rules are now. Some people can't afford a regular burial anymore much less a funeral in the church.. I'd think they would have to change with the times... unless there are no poor Catholics anymore.

It is fine except we do not spread the ashes. They must be buried together.

God bless!

In Christ

Fr. Joseph

God is not powerful enough to raise spirits from ashes!

Just kidding.