Q: I am in the process of preparing my will and was asked to indicate what I wanted done with my body ie: cremation or burial. I am not sure what the Church’s stance is on cremation - is it ok for Catholics to get cremated?

For a long time Catholics were strictly forbidden from being cremated. It was not that cremation was actually wrong, but that primarily from the time of the French Revolution, cremation had been encouraged as a sectarian instrument by liberal and atheistic movements to promote anticlericalism and, in effect, to deny the resurrection of the body, a belief integral to the teachings of the Catholic Church.

Pope Paul VI reviewed the matter in the light of prevailing cultural climate of the mid 20th Century, and decided to lift the ban on cremation, and to prohibit it only when, in the words of Canon Law, "it is chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching" (Can. 1176:3).

In summary, then, the Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body. (Catechism of the Catholic Church, 2301).

If you choose to be cremated, the Church teaches that your remains should be treated with the same respect as the decomposed remains of a body, and should be buried or entombed in a suitable place for commemoration of the deceased.