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What is Catholic Doctrine regarding cremation?

FALL 2020

FROM THE EARLIEST DAYS OF THE CHURCH, Christians buried the bodies of the dead in imitation of Jesus’ burial and as a sign of hope that we will share in his resurrection. To be human is to have both body and soul, and we believe that our bodies will be raised, glorified and reunited with our souls for all eternity. Our Lord himself invoked the imagery of nature to make this point: A grain of wheat falls to the ground and dies in order to rise up and bear fruit (John 12:24). The practice of burying the dead (inhumation) distinguished Christians from pagans, who burned their dead and did not believe in a bodily resurrection.

Since the early 1960s, the Catholic Church has permitted cremation, recognizing that factors such as transportation, space limitations and costs sometimes make bodily burial difficult or even impossible. It is important to keep in mind, however, that inhumation remains the strongly preferred norm. As the Code of Canon Law states, “The Church earnestly recommends that the pious custom of burying the bodies of the deceased be observed; nevertheless, the Church does not prohibit cremation unless it was chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine.”

In other words, the Church permits cremation, but hardly encourages it. Cremation remains forbidden if it is motivated by a contempt for the body or a disbelief in the resurrection. This is the risk against which the Church cautions us: When we see a body reduced to ashes, it can be more difficult to believe that “the dead will be raised imperishable” (1 Corinthians 15:52).

To forestall such disbelief, cremated remains (cremains) must be treated with the same reverence and respect as an intact body and must be interred in a cemetery or mausoleum. We would not keep the body of a loved one on a mantelpiece, divide it among relatives or scatter it from a mountaintop – and we should not do so with their cremains, either. Rather, Christians must lovingly bury those remains, knowing that the Lord will raise up the body, though now reduced to ashes, at the last day (John 6:40).