The original cemetery for Our Lady of the Mount Parish in Kalihi Valley is mostly lost, with a few headstones still visible. (HCH Photo: Anna Weaver)
RESTING IN PEACE
For centuries, the Catholic Church forbade cremation, changing its official position on the practice only about 50 years ago. How did this shift happen, and why?
Cremation in Catholic history
Historically, the church’s views on cremation as a forbidden practice were formed through Christian belief in the physical resurrection of the body. Burial of one’s dead was also a mark of difference between Christians and Iron Age pagans, who usually cremated their dead. Under Charlemagne, those who practiced cremation in the 8th century could even be punished by death.
It was only in 1963 that the Vatican issued its first official teaching on cremation, “Piem et Constantem,” establishing that “cremation is not opposed per se to the Christian religion and that no longer should the sacraments and funeral rites be denied to those who have asked that they be cremated, under the condition that this choice has not been made through a denial of Christian dogmas, the animosity of a secret society, or hatred of the Catholic religion and the Church.” These permissions were then incorporated into the 1983 Code of Canon Law.
Then in 2016, Pope Francis and the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith issued “Ad Resurgendum cum Christo (“To Rise with Christ”): Regarding the Burial of the Deceased and the Conservation of the Ashes in the Case of Cremation.” This document emphasized the church’s preference for full body burials, but also recognized the reality of the global embrace of the practice of cremation, providing liturgical norms specifically for cremated remains of our loved ones.
Cremation in modern Catholicism
In 2018, 53.1% of deceased Americans were cremated, according to the Cremation Association of North America. By 2023, the U.S. cremation rate is projected to reach 59.4%. In Hawaii, one of the 10 states in which cremation is most popular, the rate was 73.6% in 2018.
As many Catholics in Hawaii are sadly aware, the cemeteries of most island churches are filled, and the privilege of being buried at their places of worship has been unavailable for decades.
But on Sept. 15, 2020, Hawaii Gov. David Ige signed Act 022 (20) into law. The passage of the bill, which allows non-profit religious organizations to build and maintain columbaria on their properties, is profoundly significant for island Catholics.
“St. Anthony’s (Kailua) has been my parish since childhood, and I think being able to be inurned there would be meaningful to me,” says Deacon Michael Weaver, Director of Permanent Deacons. “It’s our family’s spiritual home.”
As Father John Molina, pastor of Pahoa’s Sacred Heart Church, points out, “Cremation becomes both an expression of humility through that sign of being totally consumed through the purification by fire and the return to the primordial matter so loved by God in molding our mortal bodies. Thus, what was held to be a curse now becomes a blessing: ‘Remember that you are dust and to dust you shall return.’”
Sacred Heart’s future columbaria, adds Father Molina, will be a welcome response to his parish’s lack of space for burial, and the desire to have a decent and lasting remembrance of departed loved ones.
“They have never left our company,” he says. “We remember them. They keep watch over us. May they rest in God’s peace.”
Deacon Cabiles is the chancellor of the Diocese of Honolulu.
