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Are all baptised people entitled to a Catholic funeral?
Fr Joseph Mukiibi
What you need to know:
- “Some kinds of people, however, must be denied ecclesiastical funerals unless they gave some signs of repentance before death.
The events that followed the death of Paul Kato Lubwama left many people with divided opinions about who qualifies for a Catholic Christian burial and who does not qualify for the same!
I’m writing to provide the theological background to understand the operations of the Holy Church coupled with recent insinuations! Since her foundation 2023 years ago, the Catholic Church has experienced steady growth and expansion throughout the world, guiding her children towards eternal salvation, and making enormous contributions in every sphere of genuine human development. Every now and then, however, she finds herself confronted with questions that need clear answers, in such matters as doctrine, worship, and moral conduct.
Is an ecclesiastical funeral a must for every baptised person? It’s one of the intriguing questions! In the Holy Catholic Church, an ecclesiastical funeral is the celebration of the funeral rites in the Holy Mass. This is designed to offer worship, praise, and thanksgiving to God for a life that has now been returned to God, the author of life and the hope of the just.
The Church, as an institution, is governed according to a system of laws developed over time, in accordance with the Gospel of her Divine Founder. The compendium of these laws is referred to as the Code of Canon Law. According to Canons 1176-1185 of the code, an ecclesiastical funeral is an act by which the Church seeks spiritual support for the deceased, honours their bodies, and at the same time offers the solace of hope to the living.
During the ecclesiastical funeral, the baptised escort this individual person to their journey’s end in order to surrender him to the Father’s hands. This presupposes a consistent life of communion a person has lived with other members of the church participating in all that characterises Christian life.
It is not the desire of the Catholic Church that any of her faithful should end up being denied an ecclesiastical funeral! Accordingly, Catholic faithful who have tried to live by their faith, and those under instruction in the faith must be accorded ecclesiastical funerals.
After prudent consideration by the local ordinary (Bishop), an ecclesiastical funeral can be granted to a non-baptised child born to Catholic parents, or to a baptised person who belonged to a non-Catholic church, if deemed expedient. Only in those cases in which the deceased, during their lifetime, freely, notoriously, and persistently renounced the Catholic faith or lived contrary to the Gospel does the Church deny them an ecclesiastical funeral.
The Church never condemns her children who fall short of grace by sinning, instead, she discourages and condemns the sinful acts, not individuals.
Some kinds of people, however, must be denied ecclesiastical funerals unless they gave some signs of repentance before death. These include, notorious apostates that have totally disowned the faith; heretics that have definitively held doctrines contrary to the faith and have obstinately refused to recant their views; schismatics who have joined or formed other churches and traditional shrines; those who choose cremation of their own bodies for reasons contrary to Christian faith (such as the resurrection), and notorious public sinners in whose case an ecclesiastical funeral would constitute a public scandal. In absolute terms, anyone who, with the most basic knowledge of the Catholic faith and morals, considers those cases with a truly objective mind will be able to appreciate the rationale behind the Church’s decision.
Even in such cases, however, it is not the Church’s intention to judge or condemn the deceased. She leaves that judgment to God. She, however, has the duty of protecting her faithful and other people on earth from the scandal that would arise from honouring with an ecclesiastical funeral a person who notoriously opposed her faith during their lifetime. She also has a duty to send a warning to her faithful to avoid those kinds of behaviour that could imperil their eternal salvation.
Turning to Kato’s case, some might object that his public proclamations and practice of pre-Christian religion were simply a cultural issue that should not have led him to be denied a church funeral. First, it should be clearly borne in mind that the Catholic religion is not opposed to culture, per se. According to the late Fr John Mary Waliggo, culture is the way of life, history, religion, belief, values, identity, and philosophy of a people.
Considering this richness of culture, its total rejection would be an evident disservice to the Gospel, since integral evangelization cannot occur except in the actual context in which the people live. There are innumerable treasures in every culture that the Church must not only promote. This is part of the process of “inculturation,” by which the Gospel and the culture enrich each other.
Seeking God through pre-Christian worship and practices is totally opposed to the Church’s faith, and is sufficient reason for denial of an ecclesiastical funeral! Whoever subscribes to them clearly opposes the Catholic faith and rightly loses the right to a church funeral.
Fr Mukiibi, director of communications and public relations at Kampala Archdiocese.
