Monday, September 02, 2013

Eulogy issue driving wedge between Church and bereaved (Opinion)

FUNERALS of loved ones are a most painful and difficult task. 

As a priest, it’s a privilege to be part of people’s lives during this very vulnerable moment that visits all our stories. 

A recent sanction from Bishop Smith, diocese of Meath, regarding eulogies at funeral requiems, has provoked much conversation and opinion.

The word ‘eulogy’ can be bandied about but mean different things. 

A eulogy is high praise for a person. If this is taken in an isolated sense at a funeral in a Catholic church, without reference to our relationship with God, then it is not strictly part of the liturgy.

One function of speaking of the person who has died is to paint a picture to remind those present of the person who has died and to provide a context for anyone present who did not know the person. 

It clearly can include something about the character of the person. In this sense, done gently, it can be very helpful – especially if done at the beginning of the liturgy, along with a word of welcome. 

Whether it is done by a lay person or the presiding celebrant is irrelevant.

The problem that can arise is lack of control, of which Church authorities tend to be fearful. 

And, indeed, many priests will have had the experience of most inappropriate remarks and language, perhaps at inordinate length. 

The parameters need to be set clearly beforehand so as not to be alien to the place and so as not to alienate the congregation. It is hard to justify more than one person contributing in this way.

The overriding concern I have in a homily at a funeral is to bring out how we can discern the touch of God in the life of the person who has died. 

We can discern this also in the case of a person who, perhaps, has not been active in the Church for a long time; or even a person whose life is far from exemplary.

This, I think, is our primary function as priests in this situation: to see the living and loving hand of God in every person and in how that person has touched the lives of others. The hand of God is never absent.

One curious feature of the changing patterns of Catholic religious observance in this country is that while attendance rates at weekly Mass have collapsed in many parishes (in Portlaoise, huge attendance is not the norm) and the rates of baptism and church weddings are falling, the extent to which Irish people abide by Catholic funeral rituals is almost as strong as it was half a century ago. 

It is estimated that fewer than 5% of funerals held in Ireland each year happen in a place other than a church.

Truth be told, weddings and funerals are the only occasions where the majority of the Irish now see the inside of a church. 

Irrespective of the level of religious observance during their lifetime, almost all of those born and reared as Catholics in Ireland are buried in Catholic graveyards after a full funeral Mass in a Catholic church.

From purely a marketing perspective, therefore, it seems strange that those who, presumably, wish to encourage engagement with the Church, would insist on rules that serve only to alienate the Church from the needs and wishes of the community at the one time when the general community is still reminded to visit church premises and avail of church services. 

Those church leaders who chose to publish guidelines and emphasise absolute restrictions on what can and cannot be done in a church at or around a funeral must know that, in doing so, they are driving a wedge between the Church and the bereaved at a vulnerable time.

It may seem like a relatively trivial issue, but for families denied the opportunity to say their words of tribute in the church, or have a friend say them on their behalf, it matters a lot.

It is wrong, of course, to analyse the Church’s actions in marketing terms, but similarly it is wrong of those in the Church to view the function and purpose of the church service at the time of bereavement in strictly-defined liturgical terms. 

Most people – and, it seems, from the level of non-compliance, most priests – see it as unnecessary to deny the family and the community the opportunity of knowing more about the deceased and celebrating their life by having somebody who knew them speak about them. 

It can only be a good thing to allow for funeral services with a broader degree of personalisation than merely inserting the name of the deceased at specified points in the liturgy.

It is peculiar that some condemn this as a ‘materialisation’ of religion or ‘canonisation’ of the dead.

One can appreciate why any religious organisation might wish that such tributes be outside the order of the service itself, but to suggest that any family tribute must occur outside of the church building is strange. 

Leaving aside the fact that church buildings are built and supported by community fundraising, the notion that a eulogy should occur at the graveside, where the mourners are subject to the vagaries of the Irish weather, or at some other venue or in the local paper, is simply detached from the reality of everyday life.

One wonders also whether at the heart of this restrictive view is an arrogance that the uttering of wise words about the impact of a passing should be the preserve of a specifically-trained, all-male priesthood. 

It is as if only priests can be trusted at such times to say what it is appropriate and to do it well. 

Overall, it smacks of a bureaucratic and arguably unchristian approach to the communal need to gather and grieve.

The Church should be tearing down barriers between the altar and the congregation, not reinforcing them.