Cremation Ban Relaxed

Press, Volume CIII, Issue 30560, 1 October 1964, Page 17

Cremation Ban Relaxed

(N Z. Press Assn.—Copyright) VATICAN CITY, September 30. The Vatican today made public an order greatly relaxing the Roman Catholic ban on cremation. The new provisions, which actually were distributed to the Church hierarchy more than a year ago, open the way for cremation when not motivated by “hate against the Roman Catholic religion or against the Church." The order provides that there is no such motivation unless it is specifically proven. Under the old rules set by canon law, it was the opposite. Roman Catholics, on pain of excommunication, have

been prohibited from cremation since 1886 unless they have a special dispensation. This strong measure grew out of actions by masonic and other Italian anti-Catho-lic societies in the late 19th century. They started a cremation movement designed to destroy belief in bodily resurrection.

However, modern theolog ians have made it clear that resurrection is no more difficult after cremation than after burial and the ban has remained a matter of Church

law only, and not of dogma. And since’ the original reasons for. the ban have long since passed, this coupled with the problems of overcrowded nations such as England where burial space is at a premium, prompted the new order by the Vatican’s holy office.

The order, published in the “Osservatore Romano,” actually is a new interpretation of canon law rather than a change. It also makes clear that normal burial still is to be preferred to cremation.