Delpini: No Parish Fees, Ashes Stay With the Church
On the eve of All Souls, Milan’s archbishop says Christian burial proclaims the resurrection and belongs to the whole community of faith.
Archbishop Mario Delpini of Milan has issued pastoral guidelines on funerals that reaffirm the Church’s care for the dead and reject any commercial framing of Christian burial. The letter to the Christian communities on celebrating funerals and professing faith in the resurrection was published ahead of the November 2 Commemoration of All the Faithful Departed and builds on the diocesan Directory for the Celebration of Funerals of June 23, 2017.
Grief for a loved one, the archbishop writes, “is intimate, but not private.” Lay faithful may take an active part in accompanying families, leading prayer, and offering memorial prayers at funeral homes and cemeteries. He asks that funeral firms not act as a filter between families and the Church, and that priests, deacons, or other ministers seek direct contact with the bereaved whenever possible.
Offerings, speeches, and the liturgy
On money Delpini is explicit: “there is no fee to be paid to the parish” for a funeral. Funeral homes must not list a Church offering in their price lists, and collecting offerings during the rite itself is “not appropriate.” Families remain free to make a voluntary gift to the parish afterward.
He also addresses a growing custom of farewell remarks that recount shared memories, merits, and achievements. “Not infrequently the interventions are too many, too long, too awkward,” he notes. Such words should be agreed in advance with the presiding priest as to number, length, and content. It is advisable that they take place after the celebration has ended, once ministers and altar servers have gone to the sacristy, so that they are clearly not part of the liturgy.
The choice between a funeral Mass and a liturgy of the Word cannot be imposed as a uniform scheme. When the funeral itself does not include Mass, a Mass of suffrage should be celebrated later. Each parish is urged to form a group that prepares funerals and continues to support families afterward.
Cremation and the place of the ashes
On cremation, Delpini writes that “it is desirable that ashes be kept in the town cemetery.” Keeping ashes at home, he says, “contradicts the communitarian dimension of life, death and the prayer of the faithful.” He proposes a weekly community moment at the cemetery to bless urns, for example on Saturday mornings. Where cemeteries lie far from urban centers, ashes may be kept in a suitable space in the parish church or a subsidiary church, with help if needed from curial offices.
The letter presents funerals as an occasion of evangelization and fraternity: the Church’s public prayer for the dead proclaims hope in the resurrection and gathers the community around those who mourn. By stripping the rite of commercial tariffs, confining personal tributes outside the liturgy, and situating cremated remains within consecrated space, the archbishop seeks to keep Christian burial recognizably ecclesial—an act of faith shared by the whole Body of Christ.