This is a follow up on obituaries. I read them from a few newspapers in cities that I once was a priest. It is tragic how secular the obituaries are with no mention of the person’s religious affiliation. Often included is the person’s love for their pets, the kind of food they loved and the friendship they had.
This past Saturday, one of my elderly parishioners came to me to ask me to remember a friend of hers. She and the deceased attended Mt. de Sales Academy in Macon when it was an all girls Catholic boarding school. She had been a member of my parish and I was told was even a lector here.
For whatever reason, and years ago, she disengaged from the Church and parish. At 82 she died and there was no mention in her obituary about her religious affiliation, high school of graduation or religious services. An internment of her ashes was at a Presbyterian cemetery near my rectory, but not a religious service on a Sunday at 10:30 AM.
As I looked at her obituary at the local funeral home’s webpage, I noticed two other obituaries in Richmond Hill with people who had “Catholic” looking names. One a young person who more than like committed suicide or an overdose of drugs and an elderly woman. Neither had any religious affiliation listed or services from a religious institution, just private funeral services.
In another city, three 17 year old boys were killed in a single car accident. The first obituary says nothing about the young man’s religious affiliation. There is a grave side service officiated by a Catholic priest. Did his parents disengage from the Church and see no reason to rear their son in any faith whatsoever, perhaps thinking he could choose his own path when he grew up?
This tragedy isn’t unique to Catholicism. In my town a young ex-marine with a very nice family, altruistically stopped on I-95’s intersection of I-16 to assist a stranded motorist he did not know. When he got out of his car, he was struck and killed by a tractor trailer. His obituary spoke highly of all he accomplished and truly a hero in the Marines and in life, but no religious affiliation and just a graveside service.
The same funeral home had an obituary of a young married man with a lovely wife and family who had committed suicide. No religious affiliation whatsoever and a graveside service. His mother had a heart attack two days later and died two weeks later. Same thing. There photos are together on the funeral home’s website as her funeral was their second one since her son’s funeral.
This is the new normal for a considerable number of both younger and older people.
And more and more, due to cremation, there are no funeral services at all.
13 comments:
What happened to that Catholics Come Home campaign?
Father, you are so correct. When I was in high school and college I worked for a chain of funeral homes in the New York City area. One of my grunt jobs was to read and check the obituaries after they were published to see that they were correct. In those days wakes would be two or three days. Because of that work, I scan obituaries. It is amazing the number you see where they went to a Catholic grade and high school and sometimes a college. They die and there is no wake or funeral, but a "Celebration of Life" at a local bar or restaurant. Or as you have indicated there is nothing at all. The worst I see is when the priests allow the phrase, "a Celebration of Life Mass." Like what is that?
Bee here:
I don't really find it all that surprising. Most people I know, even those raised as Catholic, have fallen away and no longer attend anything. Even older people. Considering the oldest Baby Boomers are in their mid-70's, we are now getting to the generation where a vast majority who were baptized and catechized as Catholics no longer practice the religion or receive the sacraments. And their children almost certainly don't. When they die, there is no religious service.
And I also have noticed surviving family are often not even publishing obituaries. The newspapers are charging $500 to $800 for a small paragraph of about 5 lines. And who is reading newspapers anymore? Many obituaries are appearing on funeral home websites, and tend to be much longer, but don't serve much as a notice. I imagine back in the day, when people lived in much closer knit communities and neighborhoods, the newspaper obituary alerted them to the death of people they knew. Website obituaries don't provide that function.
And I also have noticed in connection with those who died at the nursing home I volunteer at, that often, even before COVID, regardless if an elderly person was practicing their religion, surviving family members who practice no religion forgo any religious service or public wake or funeral. It can be very disconcerting for those of us who believe, who know the deceased also believed, that after they die they just disappear. No wake, no funeral, no obituary, no communal prayer for them, no acknowledgement of their lives for those not immediate family.
I guess this is the natural outcome of the great apostasy (not that I am referring to the event mentioned in Revelation) and much smaller families. And because of the huge expense of a standard funeral nowadays (typically over $12,000), people are just finding cheaper options. I expect most funeral homes have priced themselves out of existence.
We are now watching the end game of the loss of religion that began in the 1960's. For those of us who believe, it is heart wrenching.
God bless.
Bee
Bee,
All true.
Now if we could only remember what event occurred in the 1960s? Mmmm
About two months ago I got into a discussion with my mother. I admit I am far more traditional/conservative than she is (I am in my 50's and she is 82). We have argued about the Church for years, but she always kept going to Mass, in spite of complaining. The complaints never ended: She came from a big family that struggled to make it and she blames the Church's position on birth control for her parents having "too many" brothers and sisters. She rages about how unfair it is that she was terrified of eating meat on Fridays under penalty of mortal sin and now it's not a sin any more. When the priest sex abuse scandals broke out, she seized on it and all she could focus on was the hypocrisy of priests and bishops who pressure us for so much money while they live cushy lives and indulge in all of these sick pleasures. After the McCarrick scandal broke, that was enough. She told me she was ashamed to be a Catholic and that she had had it with the Church and stopped attending Mass altogether. Now she says that she doesn't understand why people even NEED religion in the first place. She thinks the Church is completely unfair to homosexual people and has completely bought into the gospel of uberliberal social justice. As sad as this makes me, I can't help but pity her more than feel sad. I don't know what to expect when she dies. It's usually the sons and daughters who leave the faith. It's almost despairing to watch your parents do it.
...What Bee said. And If only 12% of Catholics are practicing, what do we expect.
Full funerals are terribly expensive , then add on newspaper obit plus church costs for a funeral Mass (yes there are, just ask me), even elderly faithful practicing Catholics I know are questioning what they want done.
A 58 y.o. son of a colleague recently died of COVID. He was locally prominent in a high profile local governmental job and well-loved by all who knew him. Parents were serious Catholics: Mom ran Catholic bookstore for years, Dad was a Knight of Columbus. He was mostly practicing I think, but children not. There was no published obit, only a very short funeral home one, with no mention of his religious preference except that a local priest did the Mass and a graveside service. There was no rosary or vigil/wake, and only a very small immediate family-only Mass, perhaps because of COVID?
Soo, we may all need to rethink how we view the expense of and our expectations about all of this. As I understand it, wedding liturgies are down as well. The big question: How do we address all of this as the “faithful remnant”? How indeed...
Bee here:
To Anonymous at August 21, 2020 at 6:33 PM who described his mom at 82 and losing or having lost her faith. That IS tragic. Truly, I say this to you with all my heart: There is a prayer St. Faustina Kowalska said was given to her by Our Lord with a promise attached.
"Call upon My mercy on behalf of sinners; I desire their salvation. When you say this prayer, with a contrite heart and with faith on behalf of some sinner, I will give him the grace of conversion. This is the prayer:
“O Blood and Water, which gushed forth from the Heart of Jesus as a fount of
Mercy for us, I trust in You.” [Divine Mercy in My Soul (The Diary of St. Faustina Kowalska,) #186]
I said this prayer for my dad during the last three or four years of his life. My dad went to Mass every Sunday but hadn't received the sacraments in over 40 years. He was in his early 80's and his health was failing. He was a good man. He was honest, and kind, but just didn't receive the sacraments. One day he had a GI bleed. We got him to the hospital, where his blood pressure was dropping. Over the course of 3 or 4 days they gave him 8 pints of blood. The bleeding didn't stop. They couldn't find the source. A removal of his colon was too risky due to his other health issues. I think they told him if it didn't stop he was going to die, as they told me separately.
One early morning before I arrived at the hospital, a priest came in to offer my dad Holy Communion. He told the priest he couldn't receive, because he hadn't gone to confession in over 40 years. The priest told him, "Well, we can remedy that right now."
When I walked into his room to be with him for the day, my dad burst into tears, and sobbed, "I went to confession!!" I was flabbergasted.
The next day they determined the bleeding had stopped. He was in the hospital a couple more days, and then came home. But he was changed. We could hear him praying at night, Our Father's and Hail Mary's. He became close to God. He passed away of a heart attack sitting at the kitchen table, one year and one day after the onset of his GI bleed. He was 86.
I promise you, if you pray that prayer above for your mother, with faith and a contrite heart, I promise you God will give her the grace of conversion. He did it for my dad. He'll do it for your mom. It's the one thing you can do for her.
God bless.
Bee
Bee,
The biggest lefties in the Church I know are all over 75 (also Dems). They are CINO (Catholics in Name Only). Most are not very active any longer either.
That's why we should pray for the souls in Purgatory. Very many have been forgotten by their families and they have nobody to pray for them. Have a Mass said for them every once in a while. Many parishes have an envelope for All Souls Day where you cant list Mass intentions.
Without question, the loss of faith is a contributing factor here. To me, the problem is being compounded by people just struggling, money wise. Given the costs associated with a traditional Catholic funeral, embalming/professional preparation, funeral home/church rental for viewing, professional car rental, stipend, fees for musicians, tips for sacristan/servers, flowers, casket, vault (in most cemeteries), plot, grave opening/closing fee, flowers, and other peripherals, it is getting to be out of reach for many. And, we've not yet considered repast, grave marker, legal fees etc.
Perhaps socially, we need to gravitate back to a more simple, traditional and dignified disposition, freeing ourselves from some of the expectations (and expenses) imposed by societal norms allowing us to recover some of the sacred and spiritual.
But, again, what do I know as I am part of the "Side Show of grumpiness, uninformed piety, and anger" as declared by Anonymous.
Bee @ 3:53 am,
Magnificent story!!! Thanks, I needed that.
Yes, not even the South, traditionally viewed as the "Bible Belt", has been immune from secularization of this country. Is that due in part to all the migration from the liberal North? Yankees, in other words?!?
Northern liberals, once they have destroyed their cities by continuing to vote for the Party that supports rioting and looting in their cities, move South to destroy the South as well.
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