Liverpool institutes lay-led funerals

Shouldn't we get back to this kind of solemnity for funerals?

The Archbishop of Liverpool has commissioned 22 lay people to preside at funerals in the absence of a priest, the first UK diocese to do so. (Catholic News Service)

"In some of our parishes in the diocese priests are being asked to celebrate over 120 funerals each year," Archbishop Kelly wrote.

"That does not neatly work out at two or three times a week," he wrote. "Some weeks there can be six or seven."

I can see the difficulty, and as a priest I know how much stress celebrating a number of funerals a week can be. One is dealing with people at a very emotional time and situation. The fact that the Church has so many options in the liturgy adds to the stress as people ask for their favourite songs, and eulogies, and other strange things to be inserted into the liturgy. Sometimes they don't like Scripture readings that refer to judgement, etc. etc.

But to celebrate a funeral is a unique opportunity for the priestly office to be exercised in providing pastoral care for the bereaved but, more importantly to enable the celebration of the Eucharistic Sacrifice for the repose of the souls of those who have died.

I have consulted the archdiocesan website and have counted roughly 310 priests. Now, some of these priests are retired, some will be abroad studying, etc.  The news item from CNS News quoted above states the number of priests as 170 (with a projected reduction to 100 by 2015). So I don't know what the situation with the other 140 priests is. I wonder if any of the retired clergy or others from those 140 could be called upon to celebrate funeral Masses.

I also tried to find a list of deacons but couldn't locate it on the diocesan website. Could (and should) they not be called upon in preference to lay people?

We also read:

The move was announced through a brochure, "Planning a Catholic Funeral," published recently by the archdiocese. The brochure described a funeral as the "community's main celebration and prayer for the deceased."

I have often wondered about the community aspect of a funeral. What about having a funeral Mass for more than one person? I know this would be a huge cultural shift for many people and perhaps it would be something of an innovation. But I'm not sure what the significance of emphasising the funeral as the "community's main celebration and prayer for the deceased" is about. It is the prayer of Christ and His Sacrifice offered through the ministry of the priest that is of the utmost importance, not the "community's ... celebration and prayer".

One must trust the fact that the Archbishop has consulted his Council of Priests and taken their advice, but I can't help thinking this is a retrograde step and will do little to promote vocations to the priesthood.

What I'll be doing is praying for an increase in vocations to the priesthood for Liverpool so that the beloved departed might have the funeral Mass that the Church foresees as the norm.

I realise now that I am very much behind the curve. See A Reluctant Sinner for his take on it. I am certainly in agreement with him that the main pastoral consideration at a funeral is not the mourners but the deceased. It is for him/her that the rites are being celebrated. The advantage with the more traditional (extraordinary) form of the Church's liturgy is that the participation or otherwise of those present was of no consequence to the effective celebration of the liturgy and the application to the departed of the merits of the Holy Sacrifice. And with a good choir and servers, it had/has a dignity that cannot be matched.

I celebrated the Requiem Mass for a Catholic in a beautiful medieval Anglican church in Kent. Most of the mourners were not Catholic but the local choral society got together to rehearse the chant, and added a few lovely motets, and did a beautiful job. This was probably the first time the Traditional Mass had been celebrated in this church since the reformation. All commented on the beauty of the ceremonies. (And no homily was given, at the request of the widow who was not a Catholic. And the older form anyway does not allow for a homily during the funeral Mass, only the possibility of an address before the final commendation. At first I felt put out at the request for no homily but then realised that there was nothing that needed to be said. The Liturgy spoke for itself!)

Funerals, Suicide, Hope and general thoughts

Suicide is becoming a rather too common occurrence. I have learned that if you read in the local paper that "NN died unexpectedly at his/her residence on dd/mmm" it is quite likely that the person committed suicide.

There is also a lot of gloominess with the number of deaths in the town at present.

A couple of thoughts have occurred to me which may or may not be fair. I'd be interested in readers' thoughts:

• This paragraph from my Easter homily:

To abandon faith is to abandon hope and ultimately to lose any sense of the purpose of life. To journey in faith is to live by hope, and to live a life of the deepest charity – love – united with the Risen Christ in this life, so that we shall live forever with him in the next.

• Where a local population is ageing and the birthrate is in decline, deaths/funerals are bound to outnumber births/baptisms. This will lead to a general gloom in the community, possibly perpetuating a cycle of despair.

Funeral liturgies at funeral homes do not quite do it in the way a funeral liturgy in the parish church does. In our parish, the parishioners love to provide hospitality (i.e. a good luncheon) for the family and mourners. We want to provide a dignfied liturgy with a choir and organist. We want to bring the body of the deceased person - who entered upon the "door of faith" when they were baptised - into the church where they began their lifetime journey of faith which leads inevitably to the "door of death" to eternal life.

The parish church is a sacred place where the Lord is present both sacramentally and spiritually. It is a place hallowed by the prayers of so many generations of faithful catholics. There is a natural experience of the Communion of Saints, so important at the moment of death and grief.

Having said that, the local funeral home is a very dignified one, run by a faithful catholic who does everything possible to ensure that the funeral is carried out with reverence. So I have conducted funeral liturgies there. I do, however, observe the liturgical norms fully. The funeral service is carried out in the same way as it would be in church: a crucifix in a prominent position, the symbols of the Gospel Book and crucifix placed upon the coffin, the people invited to stand and sit as they would in church. Of course, no one wants to sings hymns in the funeral home and so there is no music during the funeral liturgy itself (I will not have recorded music played while we just sit and listen), apart from the In paradisum which I sing whilst sprinkling the casket/urn during the final commendation.

While extending the warmest possible invitation to the family to have the funeral of their dearly beloved departed in the church, one cannot refuse to hold it in the funeral home, and there is always the possibility of reaching out to those who perhaps have fallen away from attendance at church or who are simply non-churchgoers. I have recently had a very good experience of encountering some good young people who are rediscovering the Christian faith in one or another denomination even if their parents/grandparents are not particularly diligent in attendance at any particular church.

I now experience the several generations of people who have been lost to the Church. Why did they leave? Did the upheavals in liturgy and catechetical formation of the last forty years have anything to do with it? I cannot help thinking it did. Good liturgy and clear teaching will strengthen the faith of those who come to church. As for those who do not experience the now happily re-reformed liturgy of their parish church, we need to find every opportunity of reaching out to them and giving them reasons for hope in eternal life.

Cremation - not in keeping with the Christian vision of the goodness of matter

The Church permits cremation. The Catechism states tersely:

The Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body. (n. 2301)

The above quotation is footnoted with a reference to Canon 1176 #3 which 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.

Given this grudging permission ("does not prohibit") how is it that cremation has become so common amongst Catholics? It has always seemed to me unworthy of the dignity of the body of a baptised person - being a Temple of God - to consign it to the flames of a cremator. As Christ himself descended into the tomb after His death in anticipation of His Resurrection, so burial is a more perfect imitation of Christ the Lord as our bodies rest in the tomb awaiting the resurrection of the dead at the Last Day.

I have just finished reading John Henry Newman's "Development of Christian Doctrine". He quotes an early witness of the Christians who testifies that "They execrate the funeral-pile." That is to say: they do not burn the bodies of their deceased but rather bury them piously. Pagans, on the other hand, "hold corpses and sepulchres in aversion." For pagans, because matter, and therefore the human body, is essentially bad, it can be burned. Yet for Christians, the body is a holy thing having been united to the Divine Person of the Son of God.

And of course Catholic venerate the relics of the saints, their very bodies.

Here is the relevant section of Newman's work about this matter which you can read in its full context here:

"Perish the thought," says Manes, "that our Lord Jesus Christ should have descended through the womb of a woman." "He descended," says Marcion, "but without touching her or taking aught from her." "Through her, not of her," said another. "It is absurd to assert," says a disciple of Bardesanes, "that this flesh in which we are imprisoned shall rise again, for it is well called a burden, a tomb, and a chain." "They execrate the funeral-pile," says Cæcilius, speaking of Christians, "as if bodies, though withdrawn from the flames, did not all resolve into dust by years, whether beasts tear, or sea swallows, or earth covers, or flame wastes." According to the old Paganism, both the educated and vulgar held corpses and sepulchres in aversion. They quickly rid themselves of the remains even of their friends, thinking their presence a pollution, and felt the same terror even of burying-places which assails the ignorant and superstitious now. It is recorded of Hannibal that, on his return to the African coast from Italy, he changed his landing-place to avoid a ruined sepulchre. "May the god who passes between heaven and hell," says Apuleius in his Apology, "present to thy eyes, O Emilian, all that haunts the night, all that alarms in burying-places, all that terrifies in tombs." George of Cappadocia could not direct a more bitter taunt against the Alexandrian Pagans than to call the temple of Serapis a sepulchre. The case had been the same even among the Jews; the Rabbins taught, that even the corpses of holy men "did but serve to diffuse infection and defilement." "When deaths were Judaical," says the writer who goes under the name of St. Basil, "corpses were an abomination; when death is for Christ, the relics of Saints are precious. It was anciently said to the Priests and the Nazarites, 'If any one shall touch a corpse, he shall be unclean till evening, and he shall wash his garment;' now, on the contrary, if any one shall touch a Martyr's bones, by reason of the grace dwelling in the body, he receives some participation of his sanctity." Nay, Christianity taught a reverence for the bodies even of heathen. The care of the dead is one of the praises which, as we have seen above, is extorted in their favour from the Emperor Julian; and it was exemplified during the mortality which spread through the Roman world in the time of St. Cyprian. "They did good," says Pontius of the Christians of Carthage, "in the profusion of exuberant works to all, and not only to the household of faith. They did somewhat more than is recorded of the incomparable benevolence of Tobias. The slain of the king and the outcasts, whom Tobias gathered together, were of his own kin only."

His Honour Judge Joseph Dean RIP

Joe died at the William Harvey hospital this morning. Funeral arrangements will be announced in due course. Please pray for the repose of Joe's soul, for his wife Jenny and family. May he rest in peace.

The Funeral of Ted Kennedy

Up to now I haven't commented on this, except obliquely here. I was in the US at the time and found the whole funeral Mass a scandal. It was not so much that Ted Kennedy was provided a funeral Mass, but the fact that it was, effectively, a canonisation.

Liturgically, it was all that a funeral should not be. A funeral is not a celebration of or thanksgiving for a life, but a humble petition to God for mercy and forgiveness. I don't think President Obama should have spoken - there was a wake the previous evening and he could have spoken then. The liturgy is the liturgy - what place did President Obama have in giving his views on his political friend in a funeral Mass?

I also regret the use of white vestments. Although this is allowed, I feel it neither adequately expresses the penitential/suffragial nature of the Requiem Mass (and purple/violet is the colour of penance as in Lent) nor the spirit of expectation of the resurrection of the dead and the second coming of Christ which is proper of Advent (during which season, again, purple is worn.) I don't see why black shouldn't be used. We use white to celebrate saints who are not martyrs and the Resurrection of Christ, which has already happened. All of us mere mortals still await the resurrection of the dead. Death takes us to Advent, not Easter.

Pro-life groups who expressed their sense of scandal that a politician who had supported abortion should be accorded such a public funeral ceremony received a great deal of criticism. But recently Archbishop Burke, the President of the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura, has weighed in behind them, condemning the political correctness that is part of the 'tyranny of relativism'. More details, links, etc at lifesitenews.com.

Father Rutler on Eulogies in the Liturgy

Before my brother and I concelebrated Mass with Father Rutler this morning in New York he said that our mutual friend Father Kiely had put a post up about an article of his entitled Speaking Well of the Dead which had been first published in November 1997 but which is now featured at the insidecatholic.com blog.

It could have been written with the recent funeral of Senator Edward Kennedy in mind. Here is how it begins:

On July 29, 1997, a representative philosophe of our abortion culture, retired Supreme Court Justice William Brennan, was lavishly eulogized in St. Matthew's Cathedral in Washington, D.C., where the Requiem Mass for President Kennedy had been sung in 1963. Richard Cardinal Cushing was relatively constrained back then, because liturgical depredations had not yet switched into high gear. It was not thus when President Clinton, who vetoed the ban on partial-birth abortions, was permitted to announce to all corners of the cathedral for consumption in all corners of the world: "Brennan's America is America at its best." That is, internecine America is at its best with 39 million fewer children than would have been born were it not for Brennan's eisegesis of the Constitution. Attorney General Janet Reno later said in a speech to the American Bar Association that the honors paid to Brennan in St. Matthew's Cathedral inspired her to go on.

Father Rutler preached at some length - the people expect this - about St Gregory the Great, the Apostle of the English, kindly referring to us as Angels joining him on the sanctuary with reference to St Gregory's comment that the fair haired slaves he had seen in the Roman market place were not Angles but Angels (non angli sed angeli). Father Rutler has in his church a fine copy of Holbein's portrait of St Thomas More, the original of which is a few blocks up the road at the Frick Collection.

He is the patron saint of all those in public office. His intercession is very much needed.