(LifeSiteNews) — Catholics must guard against the temptation to engage in immoral burial fads such as spreading ashes, “human composting,” and “liquid cremation” of human bodies.
Each one represents serious moral concerns for Catholics and must be rejected.
Spreading ashes
Spreading cremated ashes in the deceased’s favorite place seems to be the more prominent of the practices listed.
The surviving relatives will take the cremated ashes and spread them at Disney World, a favorite baseball stadium, or other prominent place in the deceased’s life.
But Catholics cannot engage in this practice.
“In order that every appearance of pantheism, naturalism or nihilism be avoided, it is not permitted to scatter the ashes of the faithful departed in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way, nor may they be preserved in mementos, pieces of jewelry or other objects,” the Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (formerly known as the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith) affirmed in 2016. “These courses of action cannot be legitimized by an appeal to the sanitary, social, or economic motives that may have occasioned the choice of cremation.”
Sadly, many Catholics ignore this prohibition or remain ignorant of it.
It is on us then who know of these problems to charitably inform family members and friends who might pursue scattering ashes to instruct them against the prohibition.
This is not easy, particularly since it will have to take place soon after the death of a loved one.
It is also on the priests or Catholic funeral homes to ensure cremated ashes are buried or otherwise respectfully stored at a cemetery, though the ideal is always burial of the body. However difficult it may be, it is a spiritual work of mercy to instruct the ignorant.
‘Human composting’
Human composting is what it sounds like.
Much in the way someone throws old coffee grounds or vegetable peelings into a compost pile to turn into fertilizer, the human body, a creation of God, is treated like nutrients for the dirt. This is currently legal in at least seven states.
Human composting is “disconcerting” because it leaves “nothing that one can point to and identify as remains of the body” as the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops wrote in a March 2023 statement.
“The body and the plant material have all decomposed together to yield a single mass of compost,” the Committee on Doctrine wrote. “What is left is approximately a cubic yard of compost that one is invited to spread on a lawn or in a garden or in some wilderness location.”
A sympathetic essay in Wired says it is also a way to fight “climate emergency.”
“Also known as natural organic reduction, human composting transforms bodies into nutrient-rich soil,” Mallory McDuff, an environmental education professor, wrote last month. “Donating human remains to a body farm and human composting are two ways to create life from death, engage family and friends, and make a difference in our climate emergency.”
“The first step in human composting begins with the body in a ‘cradle’ surrounded by organic materials, such as wood chips, alfalfa, and straw,” McDuff wrote. “For about 30 days, the body remains in a ‘vessel,’ where microbes and heat transform it into compost.”
Catholics who may be inclined to liquid composting should see how it comes from a distorted view of our body and our relationship to nature.
The Wired essay quotes a researcher saying, “A raccoon can decompose on the road, and no one freaks out. But we have a messed-up attitude about human death in our society.”
Raccoons were not given dominion over the Earth though. Humans were.
Our bodies deserve a proper burial – raccoons do not.
‘Liquid composting’
Liquid composting, like human composting, treats the human body as a pollutant and humans as a scourge on the environment. It too takes a human body, created by God, and tries to turn it into a resource.
“Like human composting, alkaline hydrolysis — also called water cremation, resomation, or aquamation—is a process for transforming a body after death,’ Recompose.life explains. “Alkaline hydrolysis takes place in a pressurized vessel filled with water and potassium hydroxide, which transforms the body into a sand-like material.”
That definition puts a misleading gloss over it. How quaint! Just a handful of sand!
Here’s how the USCCB accurately described it in the March 2023 statement “On Proper Disposition.”
“After the alkaline hydrolysis process, there are also remnants of the bones that can be pulverized and placed in an urn,” they wrote.
They continued:
That is not all that remains, however. In addition, there are the 100 gallons of brown liquid into which the greater part of the body has been dissolved. This liquid is treated as wastewater and poured down the drain into the sewer system (in certain cases it is treated as fertilizer and spread over a field or forest). This procedure does not show adequate respect for the human body, nor express hope in the resurrection.
Our bodies are not supposed to be turned into gallons of liquid and treated like rainwater. Catholics cannot engage in this practice either.
What to do
One justification for cremation and composting is the cost, supposedly less expensive than a funeral.
The median cost of a funeral, including a viewing and burial, is $8,300, according to the National Funeral Directors Association. About 33 percent of that comes from the cost of a metal burial basket. There are other costs for the burial plot and headstone.
“Human composting” can cost around $7,000, though, making it not really that much cheaper than a funeral.
There are also programs through some counties, for example, to lower the cost of burial for people who are poor. Someone can also buy a life insurance policy to at least cover the cost of the burial and funeral.
Finally, communities should come together to pitch in to help with burial for the poor or others who need it.
Burying the dead, after all, is a corporal work of mercy.
