Standing near the open rear door of the hearse, he said the prayers of final commendation while the family watched and prayed over a phone video link.

"I was able to pray the prayers and bless the remains of their loved one knowing they were there,"

"It was a beautiful experience, and it was something I felt graced to do."

Camody is the parish priest of St Theresa's in Plimmerton, north of Wellington.

Archdiocese of Wellington Vicar for Maori Deacon Danny Karatea-Goddard has been using technology to remotely accompany whanau in their tangi.

"Even though we are not able to be there kanohi ki te kanohi, we are reaching out using alternatives."

"It's not the best way of doing things, but it's what we can do."

Karatea-Goddard says he can train younger whanau members to offer words of farewell and prayer: "Families themselves are drawing on their own resources."

While New Zealand is at alert level four no funerals are being celebrated.

Funeral directors have advised that families have the choice of immediate cremation or burial, or putting bodies in their mortuary facilities.

Technology cannot help with all funeral lockdown problems, but grieving families are being encouraged to contact parishes to link with the support available.

The Government has said the proposed change to Alert Level 3 - whenever it happens - will allow ten people to attend a funeral, though families will need to decide who the ten will be.

Source:

Supplied Te Huinga o nga Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa
The New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference

They're called coffin clubs, and members have a range of motivations, from thumbing a nose at death to warding off loneliness to cutting funeral costs. Read more

In a paper going before Hastings District Council this week, manager Isak Bester brings several matters to the councillors' attention, including the extra time involved in cremating "oversize caskets".

Oversize caskets are used for anyone weighing more than 150kg.

While an average-sized person's casket takes about 2½ hours to cremate, an oversize one takes between 4½ hours and 5½ hours.

On average, the cost of a funeral is about $10,000.

Whether you opt for burial or cremation, it will have a significant impact on price.

Depending on the area, the price of a burial plot can range from $657 (central Hawke's Bay) to $6613 (North Shore Memorial Park, Auckland).

In addition, interment fees range from $319 (Taupo) to $1860 (Auckland).

Cremation is usually cheaper than burial. If you're using a council-owned crematorium, you'll pay between $525 and $900.

Privately owned crematoria can be more expensive, with services costing between $700 and $1100.

The Hastings District Council is proposing to charge an additional $200.00 for the cremation of a large person.

A council spokeswoman said between six and eight "oversize caskets" had been cremated at the crematorium in the past year.

That was out of about 700 a year.

Funeral Directors Association of New Zealand president Gary Taylor said he had not come across such a scheme before, and it was not something he supported.

"Anything that limits a family's ability to make a choice, we as an association would question.

"Funerals are all about choice. They're about families being able to make choices based on good information given to them by funeral directors and, if those decisions are going to be clouded, then I don't think that's a progressive step forward."

While the Catholic Church continues to prefer burial in the ground, it accepts cremation as an option.

Source

• stuff.co.nz
• nzcatholic.org
• stuff.co.nz
• consumer.org.nz
• Image: cbc.ca

The National Board for Safeguarding Children's guidelines to church authorities include ways to discreetly conduct the funerals of clerics who had allegations made against them.

Some dioceses have added to these guidelines.

They say funerals must take place in a private chapel, no death notice may be published, the deceased may be referred to only by his Christian name throughout the funeral service and that the deceased may not be buried in his clerical garb.

One set of diocesan guidelines obtained by the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) suggests "consideration be given to having the funeral liturgies in a private chapel and/or at a time other than the usual times."

The ACP has expressed concern over these arrangements.

ACP spokesman Fr Tim Hazelwood says the practice - which applies even if the priest was not convicted of any offence - is terrible.

"We're concerned at funeral arrangements for stepped-down priests or those facing accusations, particularly for priests who have been accused of something but nothing has been proved.

"I personally know an elderly priest who's been facing an accusation, which he totally denies, dating back 40 years.

"In his case, he will be denied a proper Catholic funeral and it's causing him and his family terrible distress.

"The situation differs from diocese to diocese, but in general priests in this situation are treated terribly.

"Even members of the Kinahan gang or convicted murderers can expect proper Catholic funerals, but that's not the case with some priests, who really are treated like the lepers of Irish society."

Source

• The Times
• The Irish News
• Image: Our Sunday Visitor

But RNZ's Samoa corespondent Autagavaia Tipi Autagavaia says families are more inclined to be traditional when it comes to funeral costs.

"When you talk about a funeral in Samoa, every Samoan living overseas knows exactly what they're going to prepare to bring to Samoa."

"Lots of money, lots of fine mats and lots of food because Samoan funerals are very expensive, I tell you."

"I believe Samoa is very very very different how they feel about their loved ones when they prepare a funeral, whether they are a low income family because in Samoa everyone contributes, everyone shows their love of the person."

He says it'll take a few years for Samoans to catch on and consider insurance.

The two focus group sessions were organised by the Regional Disaster Resilience in the Pacific Small Island Developing States (RESPAC) and the Pacific Financial Inclusion Programme (PFIP).

Separate focus groups of employees and employers looked at the concept of funeral expenses insurance.

Participants agreed the insurance would be an attractive option. They said they would be willing to take up as it would help them deal with the high cost of funerals.

Affordability and trust in the organisation providing the insurance were the two main priorities highlighted as being important to them when deciding to purchase funeral expenses insurance.

Source

• RNZ
• Scoop
• PFIP
• Image: Travelling with matches

The National Board for Safeguarding Children published updated guidelines on Wednesday.

They give recommendations if an accused priest dies before an investigation has concluded.

In such a case, "careful thought should be given by the Church authority to the way the requiem liturgy and interment is conducted".

"Publicly praising the respondent's qualities as a priest could have a seriously detrimental impact on complainants."

Some of the content of the new guidelines was reported by the Irish Times.

The guidelines state that when the Church decides to announce a priest is standing aside from ministry due to allegations, a presumption of innocence should be emphasised.

"Confidentiality is required, and advice will be needed on what can be shared, by whom and with whom.

"Parishioners cannot be told everything, but they do need an explanation for the sudden unavailability of the priest for a period.

"What they are told should be the truth."

The preferred approach is for any public communication to be agreed with the "respondent".

The guidelines reiterate the inviolability of the confessional.

While "all suspicions, concerns and allegations of child abuse must be reported to the statutory authorities", the guidelines state that "there is one exception to this rule".

That is "if abuse is disclosed during the sacrament of Reconciliation", the documents state.

The guidelines stated that there must always be available "confessionals with a fixed grate between the penitent and the confessor in an open place, so that the faithful who wish to can use them freely".

However, where abuse is admitted by a perpetrator or alleged by a child/young person in the confessional, the guidelines direct that a priest should strongly advise them to report this to statutory authorities.

Sources

• Irish Times
• Image: Trip Wow

"Please understand that we do not charge for our services. It would therefore be appreciated that the Funeral Director, when preparing a bereaved family for the funeral service, makes this point very clearly," Fr David Dowling, chairman of the Council of Priests, said in the letter to Funeral Directors.

"The family may wish to make a donation to the priest, but this should not be interpreted or explained as payment."

The letter says it is not usual to make a donation for the use of the church, but there may be a hiring fee for the church hall or other place for refreshments.

However, "in all cases, the circumstances of the bereaved family should be taken into account."

Supplied

It released a 252-page report Death, Burial and Cremation - a new law for contemporary New Zealand, last week.

The report is a response to a request to undertake a first principles review of the Burial and Cremation Act 1964.

While the report is directed at laws governing burial and cremation, Chapter 7, Certainty about when death occurs, does examine whether there is a need to clarify the legal definition of death.

The commissioners concluded that common law does not provide certainty as to whether a person who is brain dead is dead for the purposes of the law.

However they did not recommend any change in the law regarding a legal definition of death "because the status quo does not present a significant practical problem for the statutory duties proposed in this Report."

They say however that the lack of a statutory definition of death may present a greater problem in other areas of the law.

The commissioners conclude that "While it is outside the scope of this project, we suspect that greater difficulty arises in respect of organ transplantation due to the potential for doctors to carry liability for removing organs."

They note however that few cases have reached the courts in New Zealand in the four and a half decades since the advent of artificial respiration.

"This may indicate that brain death is not particularly common and practical legal issues are usually resolved or avoided by good communication by health practitioners, by consensus or by alternative dispute resolution processes outside court."

The report made 127 recommendations for change burial and cremation laws.

It has been tabled in Parliament for ministers to consider developing new legislation.

Source

• lawcom.govt.nz
• stuff.co.nz
• Image: upload.wikimedia.org

The church's General Synod voted overwhelmingly in favour of the change, by 262 votes to 5, with six abstentions.

Church officials said the reform will bring ecclesiastical law into line with the 1961 Suicide Act in the United Kingdom, which decriminalised suicide.

The change is also meant to signal the Church's compassion for the vulnerable.

Synod members heard that many clergy do give burial services to suicides and had done so for years despite the letter of Church law.

The law effectively prohibited a service to those "of sound mind" who take their own life.

The Book of Common Prayer, dating from the 16 century, stated that the funeral service may not be used "for any that die unbaptised, or excommunicate, or have laid violent hands upon themselves".

Suicides were often buried outside a consecrated churchyard or on the north side of the church, without the benefit of the Prayer Book burial service.

Synod member Rev. Michael Parsons said that up until 1882 a suicide could only be buried in a churchyard between 9pm and midnight and "without rite".

Rev. Parsons said the new law will be seen as a very positive pastoral step.

He added in a paper for the synod that the Church law "may lie behind a widespread public perception that suicide is the unforgiveable sin and hence the Church will disapprove".

"There are public memories of real or imagined Church hostility.

"Yet pastoral practice has for many years been much more sympathetic and the vast majority of clergy today would wish to minister to the family in every way possible."

He noted that it was odd that the Church would bury murderers, child abusers, gangsters and rapists, but not suicides.

Senior clergy and officials will now consider how to change the rules.

They will also consider whether to allow full funerals for people who have not been baptised.

Sources

• Daily Mail
• Gloucester Citizen
• Image: BBC

A witness told the Afrikaans newspaper Volksblad that shortly after the coffin was lowered into the ground, a wooden plank on the edge of the burial pit snapped, sending the undertaker tumbling into the grave.

The minister then slipped and fell into the grave,followed by several pallbearers. Continue reading

Under the original proposal for the Cemeteries and Crematoria Bylaw, city residents would have had to get written permission to scatter their loved ones' ashes. Continue reading

They are Philip Tomlinson of Timaru and Paul Briggs of Nelson.

The pair are in open rebellion against the funeral industry because both feel the New Zealand funeral industry has become too commercialised and demands too much money from families.

Tomlinson, a retired mathematician, has even published a book on the subject, Arranging a Funeral, to give people some pointers on doing it themselves. Continue reading

The proposed amendments to the Auckland council's Cemeteries and Crematoria Bylaw include restricting the time when burials can take place, allowing only a person authorised by the council to fill a grave, removing flowers from graves two weeks after a burial and requiring bookings for cremations and burials to be made by midday the day before. Continue reading

A February 2 decree from Archbishop Terrence Prendergast states Catholics gather at funerals "not to praise the deceased, but to pray for them".

Contrary to popular belief, eulogies "are not part of the Catholic funeral rites, particularly in the context of a funeral liturgy within Mass," the decree added.

Many Catholics, it added, do not know this.

The archbishop credited this to the high number of Ottawa Catholics attending non-Catholic funerals, as well as the eulogy-laden "funerals of public figures".

The Church's objection to eulogies at Catholic funerals is that they are secular speeches designed to offer "high praise" to the dead "without reference to God or to faith," according to the Ottawa decree.

Ottawa priests are "strongly" urged to encourage Catholics to speak publicly about loved ones outside the Mass — at funeral homes, receptions, or in a parish hall.

In an interview with the Canadian Broadcasting Corp., Archbishop Prendergast conceded that eulogies at Catholic funerals "had crept in" but that "technically, the books that guide us don't allow them".

However, Archbishop Prendergast said the Church was facing increasing pressure from families to have more, and even multiple, eulogies at funerals.

To that end, a compromise was reached.

The decree permits "words of remembrance" to be delivered, but with three conditions.

They must be spoken at the beginning of the liturgy; must be one page of text taking three to four minutes to read, with mention of the deceased's "life of faith"; and they should be read from a place other than where Scriptures are proclaimed.

Sources

• Religion News Service
• National Post
• Canadian Broadcasting Corporation
• Image: Canada.com

Alatauai Leota-Sasa, a netball ace from St Catherine's College, Kilbirnie, was being farewelled at PIPC Newtown church yesterday when the pastor interrupted to say the building had been declared uninhabitable. Continue reading

For many bereaved Americans, the funeral has become instead a ‘celebration of life'. It has a guest list open to everyone except the actual corpse, which is often dismissed, disappeared without rubric or witness, buried or burned, out of sight, out of mind, by paid functionaries such as me — the undertaker. So the visible presence of the Pope's body at the his funeral struck many as an oddity, a quaint relic of old customs. How ‘Catholic' some predictably said, or how ‘Italian', or ‘Polish', or ‘traditional'; how ‘lavish', ‘expensive', or ‘barbaric'.

Instead, what happened in Rome that week followed a pattern as old as the species. It was ‘human', this immediate focus on the dead and this sense that the living must go the distance with them. Most of nature does not stop for death. But we do. Wherever our spirits go, or don't, ours is a species that down the millennia has learned to process grief by processing the objects of our grief, the bodies of the dead, from one place to the next. Whatever afterlife there is or isn't, human beings have marked their ceasing to be by going with their dead — to the tomb or the fire or the grave, the holy tree or deep sea, whatever sacred space of oblivion we consign them to. Continue reading

Sources

• Thomas Lynch in Aeon Magazine
• Image: Hawke's Bay Today