Image copyright AFP Image caption A worker collects ashes after cremation. File photo

The ashes of cremated Catholics cannot be kept at home, scattered or divided among family members, the Vatican has announced in new guidelines.

The two-page instruction by the Vatican's department on doctrine said ashes of the dead must be kept in "sacred places" such as cemeteries.

It also stressed that the Roman Catholic Church still preferred burials over cremations.

The Vatican allowed cremation in 1963 but has always frowned on the practice.

It also stressed at the time that cremation must not suggest a denial of faith about resurrection.

Countering 'new ideas'

"It is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewellery or other objects," said the instruction by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.

"These courses of action cannot be legitimised by an appeal to the sanitary, social, or economic motives that may have occasioned the choice of cremation."

The Vatican said it was issuing the new guidelines to counter "new ideas contrary to the Church's faith" that had become widespread since 1963.

It said the Church could not "condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death, such as considering death as the definitive annihilation of the person, or the moment of fusion with Mother Nature or the universe, or as a stage in the cycle of regeneration, or as the definitive liberation from the 'prison' of the body".

The guidelines reiterated that Catholics who chose to be cremated "for reasons contrary to the Christian faith" must be denied a Christian funeral.

The Vatican also stressed that "the Church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased".

Pope Francis had already approved the guidelines, the Vatican said.

Shortage of burial land fears - BBC's Religious Affairs correspondent Martin Bashir

Fearing the impact of naturalistic ideas about the circle of life, where the body is regarded as no different to other physical matter, the Vatican has decided to clarify its position on what should happen to the remains of the dead.

Cardinal Gerhard Muller, the head of the Church's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said ashes of those cremated should be committed to a cemetery or another consecrated place.

But Britain and some other western countries face a shortage of land in which to bury bodies.

There are concerns this announcement will not only place financial burdens on Catholic families but also increase the pressure on cemeteries, half of which are expected to run out of space within the next 20 years.</s>The Vatican has said that Catholics who want to be cremated cannot have their ashes scattered or kept at home.

Rather, the deceased’s ashes are to be stored in a “sacred place” such as a cemetery or a church.

Tuesday morning’s ruling came from German Cardinal Gerhard Muller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine Of The Faith (CDF), the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog.

Speaking at a Vatican news conference, Cardinal Muller said that in recent decades there had been a huge increase in many countries, both in the practise of cremation rather than burial, and in the “domestic” conservation of the ashes of the deceased.

“We come from the earth and we shall return to the earth,” Cardinal Muller said, confirming the church’s preferernce for burials.

“The church continues to incessantly recommend that the bodies of the dead be buried either in cemeteries or in other sacred ground.

“In memory of the death, burial and resurrection of the Lord, burial is the most appropriate way to express our faith and hope in bodily resurrection,” he said.

Cardinal Muller did however acknowledge that cremation is nonetheless “not prohibited” by the Catholic Church.

For most of its 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church only permitted burial, arguing that this best expressed the Christian hope in resurrection.

In 1963, however, the Vatican allowed cremation as long as it did not suggest a denial of faith about resurrection.

Tuesday’s ruling has reiterated that teaching but has issued new guidelines for the conservation and treatment of the ashes of the dead.

Having consulted with the relevant Vatican congregations as well as with bishops’ conferences all around the world, the CDF concluded that the ashes of loved ones must be kept “in a holy place, that is a cemetery or a church or in a place that has been specifically dedicated to this purpose”.

“The conservation of ashes in the home is not allowed. Furthermore, in order to avoid any form of pantheistic or naturalistic or nihilistic misunderstanding, the dispersion of ashes in the air, on the ground, on water or in some other way as well as the conversion of cremated ashes into commemorative objects is not allowed,” Cardinal Muller said.

Speaking at the news conference, Msgr Angel Rodriquez Luna, a “consultor” with the CDF said that while some people might argue that the choice to preserve a loved one’s ashes comes from wishing to remain close to them in memory and prayer, “it must be observed that the deceased faithful form part of the church, they are the object of prayer and of the memory of the living and it is only right that their remains be received by the church and looked after with respect.”</s>New Vatican guidelines will change the way Catholics treat the cremated remains of loved ones, with Catholic leaders now saying that scattering them in a favorite, meaningful spot deprives the Christian community as a whole of remembering the dead.

Released on Tuesday, the Vatican’s new guidelines for Catholic practitioners wishing to be cremated state the remains “cannot be scattered, divvied up or kept at home, but rather stored in a sacred, church-approved place.”

Pope Francis approved the new measure on March 18.

Scranton diocese cemeteries offer services for the appropriate and respectful treatment of cremated remains, said spokesman William Genello. The new guidelines “reaffirm the Church’s belief in the sacredness of the human body and the resurrection of the dead,” he said.

Cremated remains are to be entombed in a mausoleum or columbarium or buried in a common grave in a cemetery, said Mr. Genello, who added if possible the deceased should be memorialized with a plaque or stone that includes their name.

The burial or entombment of a body in the Catholic faith is done in imitation of the burial of Jesus’s body, he said.

In extraordinary cases, however, a bishop can allow ashes to be kept at home. Vatican officials declined to say what circumstances would qualify, but presumably countries where Catholics are a persecuted minority and where Catholic churches and cemeteries have been ransacked would qualify.

For most of the Catholic Church’s 2,000-year history, cremation was not allowed. The Vatican lifted its ban in 1963.

The Vatican released the new instructions ahead of All Souls Day on Nov. 2, when the faithful are supposed to honor the dead.</s>The Vatican on Tuesday published guidelines for Catholics who want to be cremated, saying their remains cannot be scattered, divvied up or kept at home but rather stored in a sacred, church-approved place.

The new instructions were released just in time for Halloween, and All Souls Day on Nov. 2, when the faithful are supposed to pray for and remember the dead.

For most of its 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church only permitted burial, arguing that it best expressed the Christian hope in resurrection. But in 1963, the Vatican explicitly allowed cremation as long as it didn't suggest a denial of faith about resurrection.

The new document from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith repeats that burial remains preferred but lays out guidelines for conserving ashes for the increasing numbers of Catholics who choose cremation.

It said it was doing so to counter what it called "new ideas contrary to the church's faith" that had emerged since 1963, including New Age-y ideas that death is a "fusion" with Mother Nature and the universe, or the "definitive liberation" from the prison of the body.

To set the faithful straight, the Vatican said ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home, since that would deprive the Christian community as a whole from remembering the dead. Rather, church authorities should designate a sacred place, such as a cemetery or church area, to hold them.

Only in extraordinary cases can a bishop allow ashes to be kept at home, it said.

The document said remains cannot be divided among family members or put in lockets or other mementoes. Nor can the ashes be scattered in the air, land or sea since doing so would give the appearance of "pantheism, naturalism or nihilism," the guidelines said.

It repeated church teaching that Catholics who choose to be cremated for reasons contrary to the Christian faith must be denied a Christian funeral.

The new instruction carries an Aug. 15 date and says Pope Francis approved it March 18. It wasn't clear if the guidelines were retroactive or what Catholics should do if they have disposed of their loved ones in ways now deemed improper.</s>Sir, – The recent Vatican’s directive, Ad resurgendum cum Christo, issued by the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, concludes with the words “in order that any appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the cremated in the air, on land at sea or in some other way as preserved in mementos,pieces of jewellery or other objects”. (“Cremation ashes must not be scattered or kept at home,” October 26th)

While the document says that it was presented to Pope Francis last March for his approval this directive is an effort by the more conservative forces within the Vatican, led by the head of this Doctrinal Congregation Cardinal Mueller, to return the Catholic Church to an era when Catholics were ruled by laws, directives and minutiae that clouded the essential message of Jesus .

While the directive claims that it is upholding the dignity of the “human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity” it opens that positive message to ridicule by forbidding the faithful to honour their dead relatives in a Christian manner honouring and befitting them.

The Catholic faithful should continue to exercise their own discretion in the disposal of the cremated remains of their loved ones and consign this new directive to the annals of history.– Yours, etc,

Sir, – I can’t be the only Catholic who despairs at the ineptitude of some Vatican bureaucrats. They seem to be obsessed with rearranging deck chairs or modifying the rules of quoits.

For instance, whoever decided to modify the English vernacular mass could hardly have had English as his first language. Charitable critics might allude to ivory towers, less charitable to whited sepulchers. (Apologies for the montage of metaphors.) – Yours, etc,</s>The Vatican on Tuesday published guidelines for Catholics who want to be cremated, saying their remains cannot be scattered, divvied up or kept at home but rather stored in a sacred, church-approved place.

The new instructions were released just in time for Halloween and "All Souls Day" on Nov. 2, when the faithful are supposed to pray for and remember the dead.

For most of its 2,000-year history, the Catholic Church only permitted burial, arguing that it best expressed the Christian hope in resurrection. But in 1963, the Vatican explicitly allowed cremation as long as it didn't suggest a denial of faith about resurrection.

The new document from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith repeats that burial remains preferred, with officials calling cremation a "brutal destruction" of the body. But it lays out guidelines for conserving ashes for the increasing numbers of Catholics who choose cremation for economic, ecological or other reasons.

It said it was doing so to counter what it called "new ideas contrary to the church's faith" that had emerged since 1963, including New Age-y ideas that death is a "fusion" with Mother Nature and the universe, or the "definitive liberation" from the prison of the body.

To set the faithful straight, the Vatican said ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home, since that would deprive the Christian community as a whole of remembering the dead. Rather, church authorities should designate a sacred place, such as a cemetery or church area, to hold them.

Only in extraordinary cases can a bishop allow ashes to be kept at home, it said. Vatican officials declined to say what circumstances would qualify, but presumably countries where Catholics are a persecuted minority and where Catholic churches and cemeteries have been ransacked would qualify.

The document said remains cannot be divided among family members or put in lockets or other mementos. Nor can the ashes be scattered in the air, land or sea since doing so would give the appearance of "pantheism, naturalism or nihilism," the guidelines said.

It repeated church teaching that Catholics who choose to be cremated for reasons contrary to the Christian faith must be denied a Christian funeral.

The new instruction carries an Aug. 15 date and says Pope Francis approved it March 18.

The author of the text, Cardinal Gerhard Mueller, was asked at a Vatican briefing if Francis had any reservations about the text, particularly the refusal to let family members keep remains of their loved ones at home.

"The dead body isn't the private property of relatives, but rather a son of God who is part of the people of God," Mueller said. "We have to get over this individualistic thinking."

While the new instruction insists that remains be kept together, Vatican officials said they are not about to go gather up the various body parts of saints that are scattered in churches around the world. The practice of divvying up saints' bodies for veneration — a hand here, a thigh bone there — was a fad centuries ago but is no longer in favor.

"Going to all the countries that have a hand of someone would start a war among the faithful," reasoned Monsignor Angel Rodriguez Luno, a Vatican theological adviser.</s>LIMA — When Christ Episcopal Church closed its doors in 2005, it was the end of an era for local Episcopalians. The closest Episcopal church was Trinity Episcopal Church in Findlay. So the faithful could either drive to Findlay to attend services, or find refuge in other congregations, which led many parishioners across North West Street to St. Luke’s Lutheran Church.

But after a 12-year absence, the Church of England — the spiritual authority for all Episcopalians — is returning to Lima, this time in the form of an Anglican church. The Venerable Paul Aduba, Rector of the Anglican Church of the Pentecost in Toledo, has announced plans to establish a new church in Lima early in 2017.

“Lima is strategic,” he said, explaining the decision to establish a church here. “It is between Toledo and Dayton. We found that Lima shares some very important dynamics. There is St. Rita’s Hospital there. You produce military equipment there. We discovered that Lima is a good, fertile ground for the Gospel.”

It is important to note here that the church Aduba hopes to establish is Anglican, not Episcopal. And while the two institutions are indeed related and share the same lineage, ecclesiastical politics of the 21st century have put the two churches at odds in a number of significant ways.

Aduba, who emigrated from Nigeria and settled in the United States in 2001, is an archdeacon representing the Missionary Diocese of the Trinity, which is affiliated with the Convocation of Anglicans in North America. CANA is, in turn, affiliated with the Anglican Church in North America, but not with the Anglican Communion, which one might think of as the “official” Anglican Church, headed by Justin Welby, the archbishop of Canterbury.

Unlike the Roman Catholic Church, which has a hierarchical chain of command, the Anglican Communion is based on relationships among churches and diocese. So, as the Rev. Andrew Gross, ACNA’s Canon for Communications and Media Relations has explained, the relationships among the various groups can at times seem a bit “murky.” But it is clear that the current disagreements among Anglicans can essentially be traced to the early part of this century when conservative congregations, particularly in Africa and the United States, took issue with what they perceived as the Communion’s increasingly liberal stands on women in the clergy, homosexual marriage and interpretations of Christ’s role in eternal salvation.

In the U.S., conservative Episcopal churches faced the choice of either going independent or aligning themselves with African bishops who broke from the Communion. Many of these congregations aligned themselves with Archbishop Peter J. Akinola of Nigeria, and these are the Episcopal churches that ultimately formed CANA.

Aduba’s arrival in the United States coincided with the early rumblings of dissent in the Anglican world. He served from 2004 to 2005 as the pastor at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Bowling Green, officiating as well at services in Napoleon, Bryan and Fremont. He found that his approach to the services did not always sit well with the staid Midwestern congregants.

“Our brand of the Gospel is very dynamic,” he said. “We dance. We sing. We shout. But at St. John’s they were quiet. But our worship is more vibrant. We want to make noise. We want to shout. We want to dance. I discovered that in Bowling Green they were so quiet, so gentle, they didn’t want noise.”

Now serving in a diocese that is affiliated with CANA, Aduba believes he can bring this more animated, charismatic brand of Anglicism to Lima.

“We want to target those who are tired, those who are bored, those who say, ‘Man, I’m done. I no longer have the fire in me.’”

Lest Lima’s displaced Episcopalians worry about the theological underpinnings of this African-influenced approach to worship, ACNA spokesperson Gross noted that the charismatic is one of three streams of worship being expressed in ACNA’s churches, the other two being the Angli-Catholic, or traditional, stream, and the Evangelical stream.

“We spice our own churches with the charismatic, so it will be a vibrant church,” said Aduba, explaining his vision for the Lima church. “You won’t fall asleep in our church. But we, like the Episcopal Church, use the Book of Common Prayer. We are just like them.”

Aduba is now in the process of meeting with Lima residents and scouting potential locations for the new church.

He welcomes feedback and comments at 419-360-2048 or 419-867-4091.

Although it goes by a different name, the Episcopal Church is the face of the Church of England, or Anglican Church, in the United States. The disparity in names can be traced all the way back to the American Revolution. At the time, the Anglican church was firmly established in the colonies. The Revolution, however, left the American churches in disarray and cut them off from the church in England. By the 1780s, these churches had regrouped and they sought to reestablish ties with the mother church. But as the process of reconciliation progressed, Apostolic Succession became a point of contention. Anglican bishops were required at the time to take an Oath of Allegiance to the English Crown. American clergy balked. So Samuel Seabury of Connecticut finessed this requirement by seeking consecration in the Scottish Episcopal Church, which did not require the Oath. He thus became the first bishop of the American Episcopal Church. (The word “episcopal,” in fact, is defined as “of, or relating to, bishops”) Eventually, the English church changed church law to allow the consecration of clergy outside England without requiring them to recite the Oath of Allegiance. Americans, however, retained the Episcopal name while remaining in the Anglican Communion.
The Catholic Church announces that cremated remains must be kept in consecrated land, rather than scattered about or kept at home. The Church first permitted cremation in 1963, but still strongly favours burial.