THERE is nothing wrong with cremating the dead as far as the Catholic Church is concerned, said Vergillio Grino, a Novist from the Missionary Servants of the Church.
In an interview, Grino said that there is no reason for the Church to reject cremation because it is not the soul who will be put into flames but the physical body.
He also told to The Manila Times that the Church has a more comfortable stance for cremation unlike the death penalty and same sex marriages.
The death penalty and same sex marriages, according to Grino, are detrimental to the state of a person’s soul unlike cremation, which is only a mode of disposing a person’s physical body.
However, Grino stated that the Church does not accept the common practice of scattering the cremated ashes of the dead or of it being placed inside an urn in the house, believing such practices as irreverent.
“The ashes of the cremated body should be place in an urn and kept it in a columbarium,” Grino said.
A columbarium is a place where one’s remains is deposited. This, Grino said, follows the Church practice of a reverent burial of the dead.