CNA Newsroom, Dec 15, 2023 / 09:20 am
A leading Catholic moral theologian this week offered insight into the Vatican’s newest guidance on the handling of cremated remains, noting that Church teaching on “reverence for the body” must still be at the center of any decisions related to a loved one’s ashes.
The Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith said in recent guidance that it may be permissible for a Catholic to keep a small portion of a deceased loved one’s ashes in a personal place of significance if some conditions are met.
The office also said that it is permissible for the commingled ashes of deceased and baptized persons to be set aside in a permanent sacred place if the names of the persons are indicated so as to not lose memory of them.
Father Thomas Petri, president of the Pontifical Faculty of the Immaculate Conception as well as a moral theologian, said on “EWTN News Nightly” that, historically, cremation “was always considered a problem because it has pagan tendencies.”