Folia Theologica et Canonica 9. 31/23 (2020)

Ius canonicum

PASTORAL LEGISLATION OF POPE FRANCIS: NEW NORMS ON TEACHING... 329

VII. Ecclesiastical burial

In the Preface of the Ordo exsequiarium (June 1st 1970) is a summary of the essential teaching of the Church on ecclesiastical burial: The Church celebrates Christ’s Easter Sacred Mystery during the burial service of her sons and daughters. It springs from that faithful conviction which believes that those who have baptized, through that have become one body with the died and resurrected Christ. Therefore, we believe and hope that they will resurrect with him from the dead.54 Hence, the burial customs of the Catholic Church have essential bounds to the belief in the immortality of souls, resurrection of bodies, existence of Purgatory, and in the divine mercy.55 Consequently, the ecclesiastical burial belongs in particular to the primary goal of the Church, which is the promotion of the salvation of souls.56

During the time when the Second Vatican Council was in session (1962- 1965) on July 5th 1963 the Sacred Office promulgated a new instruction after a long debate which had concluded on May 8th 1963 about the cremation of corpse.57 The legislator has introduced a fundamental change within this document, abolishing the radical rejection of discretion regarding the final will and testament on cremation. Based on this new law, if was possible to prove, that the testator persisted in the belief of resurrection of body and in the immortality of soul - even he/she required the burial in cremated form - the Church allowed the regular ecclesiastical burial.58 Six years later, the Sacred Congregation for Divine Worship ordered in a decree, on August 15th 1969 - after the Second Vatican Council - the publication and promulgation of the new liturgical book with renewed rubrics of the Rites of Catholic Burial, which has come into force on June 1st 1971. This new liturgical book of burial service contains in Art. 15lh of its Introduction the rules regarding the cremated corpse, which basically follow the above indicated principles and theological

54 Liturgical Book of Burial, I. Budapest 1977. 19.

55 Cf. Radó, P., Enchiridion liturgicum, I. Romae-Friburgi-Barcinone 1961. 501.

56 About the disciplinary development, cf. Szuromi, Sz. A., Le esequie ecclesiastiche a servizio delle anime: Annotazioni circa la disciplina delle esequie ecclesiastiche cattoliche, in Periodica 102(2013)55-65.

57 Piam et constantem Christianorum consuetudinem fidelium cadavera humandi Ecclesia semper fovere studuit sive ipsam communiendo opportunis ritibus, quibus inhumationis symbolica et religiosa significatio clarior appareret, sive etiam poenas comminando contra eos qui tam salutarem praxim impeterent; quod praesertim praestitit Ecclesia quoties impugnatio fiebat ex infenso animo adversus christianos mores et ecclesiasticas traditiones ab iis qui, sectario spiritu imbuti, humationi cremationem substituere conabantur in signum violante negationis Christianorum dogmatum, maxime vero mortuorum hominum resurrectionis et humanae animae immortalitas

AAS 56(1964) 822-823.

58 Szuromi, Sz. A., Le esequie ecclesiastiche a servizio delle anime, 61.