The Vatican has announced that there will be no longer scattering of dividing of ash of cremated Catholics among family members anymore, according to new guidelines of the Church.
It stressed that ashes of the dead must be kept in "sacred places" such as cemeteries, the new guidelines says, also that Roman Catholic Church prefer burials more than cremations.
In the year 1963 Roman Catholic Church started allowing cremations but wasn't comfortable with it.
Even why Catholic were accepting cremation, it made it clear that, it wasn't a denial of faith about resurrection.
"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 jewellery or other objects," said the instruction by the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith.
"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."
The Vatican said the reason why the new guidelines is to counter the "new ideas contrary to the Church's faith" that has been allowed since the year 1963.
The new guideline also said the Church could not "condone attitudes or permit rites that involve erroneous ideas about death, such as considering death as the definitive annihilation of the person, or the moment of fusion with Mother Nature or the universe, or as a stage in the cycle of regeneration, or as the definitive liberation from the 'prison' of the body".
Vatican stressed that any Catholic who is cremated in one reason or another that is contrary to the Catholic faith will be denied a Christian funeral, also went on to say, "the Church continues to prefer the practice of burying the bodies of the deceased, because this shows a greater esteem towards the deceased".
The Head of the Church's powerful Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Cardinal Gerhard Muller also said ashes of the cremated should be kept at the cemetery or another consecrated place.
It appears Pope Francis had already approved the guidelines, says Vatican.
It appears Pope Francis had already approved the guidelines, says Vatican.
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