Helpful Guides
Cremation is permitted. The guidance that follows concerns what happens to the cremated remains afterwards, and it is more specific than most families expect.
The Catholic Church permits cremation. It continues to express a preference for the body to be present at the funeral Mass where that is possible, because of what the Church teaches about the body, but cremation itself is not an obstacle to a Catholic funeral.
Where the body is not present, a funeral Mass may still be celebrated with the cremated remains, and the Church has an approved order of service for exactly that.
Church guidance asks that cremated remains be kept together and interred or entombed in a sacred place: a cemetery, a mausoleum, or a columbarium.
It asks that they not be scattered, not be divided among family members in keepsakes or jewelry, and not be kept permanently in a private home. The reasoning offered is that a fixed, sacred resting place allows the community to pray for the person and gives the family somewhere to return to.
Families are often surprised by this, particularly the parts about scattering and dividing, because both are common practice generally. If this matters to your family, it is much easier to know before the cremation than after.
Speak with your own parish. Practice and pastoral judgment vary, priests are used to this conversation, and the answer you get from your own parish is worth more than anything a funeral establishment tells you.
Then tell us what they advise, and we will arrange things to fit it. That might mean a funeral Mass before the cremation, or a Mass with the cremated remains present, or coordinating with a Catholic cemetery for interment. None of it changes what we charge.
Choosing direct cremation does not mean choosing against a Catholic funeral. It separates the cremation from the ceremony, and the ceremony then happens at your parish, on your family’s schedule, in the form the Church provides for. You are not paying a funeral home for a chapel you did not want to use.
Yes. The Catholic Church permits cremation, while continuing to express a preference for the body to be present at the funeral Mass where possible. A funeral Mass may also be celebrated with the cremated remains present.
Church guidance asks that cremated remains be kept together and interred or entombed in a sacred place such as a cemetery or columbarium, rather than scattered, divided among family, or kept permanently at home. Speak with your own parish, and tell us what they advise so the arrangements follow it.
Yes. Direct cremation separates the cremation from the ceremony, so the Mass happens at your own parish, on your family’s schedule. Many Catholic families choose it for exactly that reason.
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Cremated remains are inurned in a national cemetery with the same honors as a casketed burial, at no cost to the family. Many families never find out.
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This is the single most common misunderstanding we encounter, and it stops families at exactly the wrong moment.
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