The New Zealand WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1924. CREMATION

New Zealand Tablet, Volume LI, Issue 46, 19 November 1924, Page 29

The New Zealand WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19, 1924. CREMATION

(AST week a meeting was held in Dunedin to consider the question of erecting a crematorium in this city. It was convened and addressed by prominent citizens, both clerical and lay. No doubt the leaders in the movement are acting in good faith, but nevertheless the proposals they bring show, a waning . respect for Christian traditions and Christian ideals. But if it is regrettable that leading Protestant laymen should interest themselves in re-establishing the distinctly pagan custom of burning the. bodies of the dead, it is positively deplorable that the clergy of any Christian denomination should support it. The addresses delivered at the meeting contained nothing that has not been repeated and refuted a thousand times since the Continental Atheists first seized upon cremation as a means with which to undermine belief in the resurrection of the dead and to de-Christianise public life. Catholics are reminded that the Church forbids them to enrol in societies established for the purpose of prompting cremation, or to direct that their own bodies or those of their fellow-Catholics be burned after death. In the space at our disposal we shall endeavor to supply the reasons why the Church utters this prohibition. « All nations agree that it is the duty of a dead man’s relatives to provide for the decent burial of his body. From this conviction arose certain burial forms or rites which differed according to the stage of culture. The Catholic Church has approved and sanctified these general notions and customs. In the light of Christian belief the mortal remains of the dead are invested with a higher significance because they were organs of the spirit, and because they are destined to rise again and become reunited with their souls. The custom of burying corpses in the earth has entered into the practice and ritual of , the Catholic Church. She devotes a special religious cult to the bodies of the dead, and surrounds the ceremony of burial, the place of burial, and the monument erected upon the grave, with a profound and beautiful religious symbol* ism. The custom of burning the bodies of the dead is of pagan origin, and was practised mostly in connection with fire worship. The Jews never burned, but always buried, their dead. The ancient pagan persecutors of Christianity, in order to destroy faith in the resurrection of the body, often cast the corpses, of martyred Christians into the flames. Minucius Felix thus adverts to their , belief that cremation ■ makes * resurrection ■ impossible: . Nor ' do we fear, as you suppose, any harm from this mode of disposing of the body, but we adhere to. tlje bid and better custom of inhumation. ~ That the lapse of tithe has not cahsed the eheaniea

of the Church to lose faith in cremation as a means with which to destroy Christianity may be i seen from the circular which some years ago was issued to the Masonio Lodges of the Continent: "We / recommend in an especial manner to the Brethren never to lose sight of the orders of Masonry in regard to the cremation of dead bodies, civil marriages, and funerals, and preventing, as far as possible, • the baptism of infants." In May, 1885, Signor Luigi Castellazzo, Secretary to the Freemasons of Rome, wrote thus in joyful anticipation of. the downfall -of the Church' when Masonry controlled the world: "Civil marriages deprive the clergy of the control of the family; lay education will shortly withdraw from - them the rising generation; and civil funerals and cremation pyres will rob them of their last pretension to rule over death." Many and plausible are the reasons advanced in support of cremation. It is said to be more becoming for the body to be dissolved by fire than to rot in. the earth. Experience records that the process of burning is most revolting. Though the body is fastened to the frame with iron bands, its resistance to the heat is so great that its contortions resemble those of a living creature undergoing -torture. Again, it is held that cremation makes it possible to realise the poetic idea of preserving a genuine memorial of the departed in the form of their own ashes. This is merely a sentimental apotheosis of human nature, and its object can be realised more effectively by honoring the grave in which the remains rest. We have read of. a widow who used to carry her husband's ashes about in her peggy-bag, together with her powder puff and hand mirror. That method of "honoring" the dead will scarcely commend .itself to husbands. The principal argument adduced in favor of cremation is that derived from hygiene. It is claimed that cemeteries are a constant menace to the public health because of the poisonous gases they exhale into the atmosphere and the decayed substances with which they infect the ground water,' which feeds the wells and springs of the vicinity. This specious argument is refuted by the testimony of competent experts, who declare that there is no danger to the public health from properly kept cemeteries. No poisonous gases arise, and if they should arise, they would be dissipated instantly by the fresh air. It has never been demonstrated that an epidemic started from a cemetery, or that cemeteries are a menace to health. Positively it can be shown that inhumation is the best and simplest means of disposing of the mortal remains of the dead.. It has been practised from the most ancient times and appeals to human sentiment as eminently decent and proper. Cremation, on the other hand, runs counter to that sentiment. Crematories and columbaria would withdraw nearly as much soil from agriculture as burial grounds, and they are costly to erect and to operate. Cremation makes the post-mortem examination of corpses for medical and judicial purposes impossible. Inhumation has this further advantage over cremation that it makes possible the disinterment of a corpse long after death in case of a suspicion of foul play arising. • •■.*'. The Church forbids us to support cremation because she looks upon it as a detestable abuse. This opinion is based, not upon any dogmatic teaching concerning the' human body and its resurrection,— God can collect and revitalise ashes as easily as' dust— on the impossibility of performing the burial rite over the remains of a burnt corpse, which is often done for ' victims of conflagrations, but mainly on the anti Christian, anti-ecclesiastical, ~ materialistic, and pagan tendency of the cremation movement, and on the human, and particularly the Christian sentiment towards the mortal remains of mail. It' is repugnant to human nature to interfere arbitrarily and violently with the natural process of decay which the body undergoes after, death, and in the second place the faithful Catholic, ; who regards Christ's death and grave as the pat- ; tern of his own demise and burial* ; can ask nothing better . than that his mortal ;: remains be buried: as the sacred body" •of the Redeemer was. buried^ .like-"a seed sowed in God'a ~ acre, fo injure' ; in .glory on the day of the Resurrection."