Vatican approves communal preservation of cremated remains
December 12, 2023
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CWN Editor's Note: The Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) has said that the Church can allow a commual site “for the commingled accumulation and preservation of the ashes of the baptized.”
In answer to questions from Cardinal Matteo Zuppi about appropriate treatment of cremated human remains, the DDF also allowed for the possibility that a family might retain some ashes of a relative “in a place of significance.” The dicastery said that ecclesiastical officials could approve that arrangement “provided that every type of pantheistic, naturalistic, or nihilistic understanding is ruled out.”
In its response to Cardinal Zuppi’s question about communal storage of ashes, the DDF said that the practice should not be seen as denigrating Christian belief in the resurrection of the body, explaining that “the body of the resurrected person will not necessarily consist of the same elements that it had before it died.”
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