Organization admits that a “minimal portion” of the remains remains in a “significant location.”
Vatican City, December 12, 2023 (Ecclesia) The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (Holy See) today published a clarification on the places where the ashes of the deceased should be kept, reaffirming the rejection of their “scattering” in nature .
The text is a response to two questions from Cardinal Zuppi, Archbishop of Bologna and President of the Italian Bishops' Conference, about the possibility of storing the ashes in common places, similar to ossuaries, and whether a “small part” could be kept there ” significant place” for the deceased.
The Holy See emphasizes that it is possible to provide a sacred place “for the collection and communal storage of the ashes of the baptized deceased,” that is, a communal ash chamber in which the ashes are deposited.
The second answer states that the ecclesiastical authority can also consider and evaluate the request of family members to keep a “minimum part” of the ashes of a deceased person in a “place significant to their history.”
The Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Victor Fernandez, recalls that in 2016 the Holy See published an instruction on burial, which referred to the ban on cremation ashes and the need to keep them in cemeteries or holy places.
“In order to avoid pantheistic, naturalistic or nihilistic errors of any kind, the scattering of ashes in the air, on earth, in water or in other places is not permitted,” says the instruction “Ad resurgendum cum Christo” (With Christ resurrect). ).
Considering that some laws do not allow the division of the ashes of the deceased, the Vatican explains that “the intervention and assessment of the ecclesiastical authority is not only canonical but also pastoral in nature, in order to help the family to recognize what decisions she has to make.” The consideration takes all factors into account.”
O.C