Historically, Catholic views about cremation have stemmed from Catholic teachings about the body. Roman Catholics consider the body a temple of the Holy Spirit, and a member of the Body of Jesus Christ. This belief creates a great reverence for the human body.
How the physical body is treated after death is important because of the Catholic belief that followers of Christ will one day be raised up with Christ to new life. For centuries, many believed that cremation prevented the possibility of the body being resurrected.
Now, the Church has changed its stance, saying resurrection is possible regardless of the method of final disposition. Resurrection isn’t obscured by cremation because God resurrects the spiritual body to enter heaven, not the physical body, the Vatican says. Since cremation does not affect one’s soul, the Church says there are no doctrinal objections to cremation.
The Church no longer opposes cremation, but it does offer guidelines on how the ashes should be cared for following cremation. To preserve the sanctity of the body, the Church says ashes cannot be kept in one’s home, scattered or divided among family members.
GUIDELINES ON CREMATION
If a body is to be cremated, the family must still hold a funeral Mass with traditional funeral rites. The Church strongly urges that the full body of the deceased be present during the final rites, but ashes are also allowed to be present at the Mass.
If a Catholic family chooses cremation, the Church requires reverent disposition of the ashes. The Vatican says the ashes must be treated in the same way a body would be. The ashes are to be kept in a sacred place, the Church says, not in one’s home, scattered, or divided among family members.
Burial in a Catholic cemetery or other sacred place is “above all the most fitting way to express faith and hope in the resurrection of the body,” the 2016 statement from the Vatican reads. In addition to ground burial in a cemetery plot as the final resting place, ashes can also be interred in a columbarium, which is a shared mausoleum, or buried in an urn garden.
Church of the Holy Rosary, Edgewater, NJ 