There’s nothing new in a minister-naffs-off-mourners story, nor yet a Catholic-priest-bans-eulogy story. Some minsters are insensitive to the needs of their congregations, some insist on theological orthodoxy, some use a funeral as a conversion opportunity, some like to remind non-churchgoers that they will burn for all eternity in the fires of hell. Some clergy do exactly what their congregations want them to do, let’s not forget, but today’s story is not about them.
Today’s story is about Father Mike, a catholic priest in America who, at the funeral of a 29 year-old, was reckoned to have conducted himself in an insensitive, impersonal way which denied the congregation the comfort and assurance they sought. Below is an email one of the mourners sent to him:
Below is the reply from the priest:
Father Mike, like a lot of Catholic priests, believes that a funeral is no place for a eulogy. The do afterwards is the appropriate occasion for personal tributes, reminiscences and other life-celebratory stuff. A Catholic funeral has an altogether different job to do.
Father Mike’s heartless-seeming treatment of those grieving people is theologically defensible. Who are we to take issue with him for defending the integrity of the Catholic funeral mass and objecting to it being muddled by the intrusion of an anomalous element like a eulogy? Any faith group which is settled, fixed and confident in its beliefs prohibits the intrusion of anomaly. Atheists (Humanists) ban religious elements from their funerals, a practice reckoned heartless by some. In the words of one humanist celebrant, “Reverting to old comforting superstitions at a time of bereavement is understandable and will no doubt persist for a generation or two … I feel that celebrants, whether Humanist or religious should personally subscribe to the ethos and philosophy that underlies the nature of the ceremony.”
Whether or not Father Mike would subscribe to what this same celebrant goes on to say, we can only wonder: “I’ve met independent celebrants who’ve told me they can be whatever the client wants them to be but that strikes me as being the job description of an ancient but entirely different profession altogether.” (Source)
The question never debated by secular, semi-religious, call-them-what-you-will celebrants is whether a eulogy does actually belong in a funeral. If a wedding is analogous, we note that the speeches are made at the wedding breakfast, not the marriage ceremony — the happy chatter is kept separate from the solemnisation.
I’d suggest that a wedding is not really analogous: marriage is (among other things) a legal contract. The solemn part is therefore the signing of the document; there is optionally — if the parties are so inclined — the calling for divine witness in a particular location. What seems to have been the problem in the case above is a breakdown in communication or negotiation. Why was it not fully clear to either party (priest and mourners) that situating a eulogy was on the cards? The eulogists may not have been neglecting God in their speaking, having delegated those observances… Read more »
I agree with Kathryn! Any funeral plans should have been thrashed out beforehand with clear explanations about God-centred liturgy and the time, place and length for a welcome eulogy. If the disagreement was acted out in full public during the funeral itself something was amiss.
Take the eulogy out of a non religious service and you have a fat load of nothing. Bit of music and a poem, thus it degenerates further below the much maligned “20 minutes down the crem” as you can’t even manage the 20 minutes!
Ah, but you do: you have the disposal of a body.
Indeed, and sometimes that is more significant without the fat load of nothing words. I attended a Poppy’s funeral where there was 1 minute of words and 15 minutes of gentle music for the incredibly close 4 mourners…. and one body.
I love these words by an Australian journo, Dick Gross: We atheists can talk the leg off a chair but we can’t sing or chant or dance the leg off an amputee. You can easily cock up even the most moving event by speeches. During my days of municipal service, these citizenship ceremonies meandered between inspirational and pedestrian. The pedestrian bits were inevitably the speeches. The best bits were non-verbal – the Mayoral handshake, the familial hugging, the singing of the national anthem, the presentation of the symbolic wattle and the giving of the certificate. All of these had no… Read more »
So the campaign against eulogies in non-church ceremonies continues. I’m torn. Of course ritual actions are capable of reaching down at a level of meaning below (or above) words. And sometimes people (we) do go on too much about someone’s life, instead of finding actions that speak louder than words. But: “words are dull”? Where does this odd anti-verbal prejudice amongst literate, fluent people come from? Is it a kind of self-disgust with what we’ve got? Actually, Charles, there’s been plenty of debate right here about whether or not secular ceremonies “should” contain eulogies. Final point before I switch off… Read more »
Agreed Gloria. In addition I often find myself “prettyfying” peoples characters when in reality they have been indifferent, uncaring or just plain unpleasant. Only words will allow us to create this illusion for the bereaved. I once said “those that know, know, and those that don’t, don’t need to”, so what’s wrong with giving those that know a bit of a white lie on a day when the absolute truth may be too much to bear?
We had my Uncle speak about my Grandad in the Church service before going to the crematorium for a private family committal.
He had a bloody amazing life so why not share…it is what Grandma wanted and the Vicar was happy to go along with what ever she wanted.
But isn’t that how it should be? Shouldn’t it be up to the person taking the service as to what their limit are and if their limits aren’t what the family want, then it should be up to the funeral director to find someone who will agree to the families wishes?
Exactly Lucy. How much longer are we going to have the pushing and prodding of people to abandon rituals that bring them comfort? Many people are not brave enough to try something different, and they are having enough trouble being brave for the day never mind doing something “off the wall”. When these individuals come along how refreshing it is for us purveyors of ceremonies! I recently found an artist brave enough to let me write his mother’ eulogy in the first person and deliver it ala Alan Bennet monologue. fabulous for us all, yet many don’t want this. Think… Read more »
Each of the funeral’s I have arranged have all been completely different, so why would I use the same vicar/humanist/civil celebrant for each? About 10 years ago when I was first starting out, anyone other than a vicar to take the funeral service was as rare as hens teeth. Now though, I have only used a vicar once since opening my own company. There is a general shift away from using vicars and I think this is down to the generation we are currently holding funerals for. There is no doubt that when Grandma dies, she will have a church… Read more »
Lucy, I never hear a funeral director say, “I get to know the family really well, so I can choose the right flowers/coffin for them.” Why’s that?
I’m not sure that’s quite how Lucy meant it, Charles. We choose neither coffins nor celebrants for our clients but if someone comes in certain that they want a completely non-religious funeral we don’t waste their time talking about the local vicars. Likewise if someone wants a Natural Burial we don’t bother discussing coffins that don’t meet the criteria. That’s all.
I can’t see that anyone is advocating any such abandonment, Lol, nor exhibiting any such insensitivity to what bereaved people want, Tim. In any case, this blog is a debating club, not a campaign, and it’s therefore permissible for the chat to drift into the theoretical. So, in the interests of debate, let me with all the objectivity and detachment in the world, mischievously lob the cat in among the pigeons and ask for what purpose, then, all the ceremonial palaver? Actually, I can see both sides of this clearly enough to induce paralysis (in myself). I can see clearly… Read more »
‘it does seem decidedly odd that people should find value in paying a person to repeat back to them the life story of someone that person never knew.’ Charles: that’s cos we so good at telling it the way they want to hear it! And we’ll weave thoughts and memories from lots of different people, friends and family. Almost every time I meet family and friends to talk about the dead person’s life, someone says, ‘I didn’t know that.’ What’s even odder is that, on the day, the people who laugh most at the stories and observations are the same… Read more »
I was being unduly mordant, A Celeb. My remark exhibited all the cleverness of a bolshy 15 year-old. I often think it’s like portrait painting. There’s the likeness and, behind that, everything that animated the subject. It’s a marvellous skill (the result a lot richer than a photosnap)
You know Charles I had a thought the other day, rarity I know, and it has occurred to me before. There’s old Charles, crafty old devil, sat by the side of the pond that is the GFG blog dropping all kinds of tasty bait and waiting to see who will bite.
The GFG is the Daily Mail of death, Lol. Or I’m the Piers Morgan of death. One or both.
“I’ve met independent celebrants who’ve told me they can be whatever the client wants them to be but that strikes me as being the job description of an ancient but entirely different profession altogether.” Grow up, Humanist, and drop the rhetoric. Aren’t you yet as bored as us all of that tired old line that says anyone who isn’t like you is a whore? If you want a religious funeral you ask for a religious minister. If you don’t – well, nobody wants a Hoover, they just want a vacuum cleaner that may or may not be a Hoover, and… Read more »
Do we ask that our loved ones Rest In Peace or be Remembered in Pieces?
Kathryn, lurking in the undergrowth with her blowpipe, darts of wisdom to the neck.