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Ask a Franciscan
By Pat McCloskey, OFM
Pat McCloskey, OFM
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Father Pat has been a high school teacher and communications director at his order’s headquarters in Rome. He has been a staff member at international OFM meetings in India, Mexico, and California. He reads Spanish and speaks Italian. He began working part-time at St. Anthony Messenger in June 1972, moving to full-time at this publication in June 1999.
Contact Father Pat
ONLINE: FranciscanMedia.org/ Ask-a-Franciscan EMAIL: Ask@FranciscanMedia.org MAIL: Ask a Franciscan 28 W. Liberty St. Cincinnati, OH 45202
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No Funeral Mass for a Cremated Person?
I understand that the Catholic Church no longer opposes cremation. One of my friends, who is a nonpracticing Catholic, said that a friend of her son had his mother’s remains cremated. The priest at her church, however, refused to celebrate a funeral Mass, saying that the decision is up to the priest at a parish.
That priest is simply dead wrong! What the Church allows in general cannot be overruled by an individual priest.
On July 30, 1997, the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments issued a decree approving new texts for a funeral Mass celebrated in the presence of cremains. That decree entered into force in the United States on November 2, 1997.
Funerals are for the living as well as those who have died. The refusal you describe is pastorally insensitive and strikes me as an outrageous example of the clericalism that Pope Francis has been denouncing for the past nine years.
Like anyone else, a priest may have his preferences, but those cannot be allowed to cancel what the Church permits. In a very restricted sense, this may be his parish, but it is not his Church. Who does he think he is? Was this the response of a servant leader?
Those who asked for a funeral Mass with the cremains present had every right to do so. I am sorry that this person was refused this right.
“Poor people, poor God,” Father Leonard Foley, OFM, a former editor of St. Anthony Messenger, used to say.
On Forehead or on Top?
On Ash Wednesday, should ashes be placed on a person’s forehead or on top of her or his head?
The 2000 Third Typical Edition of the Roman Missal indicates, “The priest places ashes on the head of those present who come to him.”
The biblical custom is to place ashes on the crown of the head (2 Sm 13:19 and Jdt 4:11). Placing them on a person’s forehead in the shape of a cross is a later and legitimate custom.
Ethically Discarding VHS Tapes
Recently, I discovered that my 200 to 300 VHS tapes can be disposed of only by paying several hundred dollars for shipping and disposal. Local recycling centers do not accept them. The tapes are considered hazardous because the Mylar tape is coated with toxic metals that will leach out and contaminate landfills. How morally obligated am I to dispose of these tapes by shipping them and paying the disposal fees?
What are the relevant local environmental regulations? Your state’s department of natural resources or environmental office can help here. You may, in fact, have more morally acceptable alternatives than your question suggests.
My confrere Mark Hudak, OFM, advises consulting Earth911.com. If you cannot find a local place to accept the tapes, it offers an address where you can send those tapes for disposal without charge.
I am a “revert” to the Catholic Church, baptized at age 4, influenced mostly by Protestant Churches, and now continuing my faith pilgrimage as a Roman Catholic.
I consider myself to have a well-formed conscience, but I wonder how to proceed when that conscience objects to certain Church teachings in matters of faith or morals. How can I continue as a member of the Roman Catholic Church?
Thanks for being willing to wrestle with this issue. People with a well-formed conscience must be open to the possibility that they may need further growth because they have accepted as true some idea that is, in fact, false. That may or may not describe your current disagreements with the Catholic Church. Faith is first a relationship with God before it can be phrased as a positive or negative statement.
In any case, I urge you to continue maintaining your communion with the Catholic Church, especially through regularly celebrating the Eucharist. Prayerful reflection on Scripture may surface something important that a well-formed conscience had not yet factored in.
Is lying always a sin? If someone asks me, “How are you?”, and I answer, “I’m fine,” but really am not, did I just commit a sin? Or when someone makes a dish of food for me and asks, “How was it?”, and I say it was great, but it wasn’t. Are these sins?
No one is obliged to disclose everything that he or she knows or feels. To your first question, “I’ve had better days” would be truthful, but you do not have to get into all the details that prompted that response. Likewise to your second question, instead of saying “It was great,” can’t you say, “It’s an unusual taste that I am still processing”?
No one being tortured is obliged to tell the whole truth. As a priest who hears confessions, I cannot be obliged to reveal the details of what a specific person has confessed.
Quick Questions and Answers
Why isn’t the word Incarnation in the Nicene Creed?
It’s already there in the phrase that Jesus “came down from heaven, and by the Holy Spirit was incarnate of the Virgin Mary and became man.”
Was polygamy accepted in the Old Testament? According to 2 Samuel 12:8a, Nathan the prophet spoke for God when he told King David, “I gave you your lord’s house and your lord’s wives for your own.” Was David’s polygamy moral?
Long before David, Jacob had two wives (Leah and Rachel) and two concubines (Bilhah and Zilpah)—and children by each of them. As time went on, Jews understood monogamy as God’s original intention, as Jesus affirms in Matthew 19:1–9.
St. Anthony’s intercession before God is powerful! Visit StAnthony.org to post your prayer request and pray for others.
StAnthony.org
The Franciscan Friars, Province of St. John the Baptist 1615 Vine St., Ste 1 Cincinnati, OH 45202 513-721-4700
