Rome rows in with views on cremation

As a nation we have tended to view ourselves as a people who do death well — so it was something of a surprise to hear that, according to the Vatican, we might have been falling short.

In a two-page instruction regarding new rules on cremation, the Catholic Church said it prefers burial over cremation and that it also wants ashes of the dead to be kept in “sacred places”, rather than being maintained at home, divided among family members, or scattered.

“The conservation of the ashes of the departed in a domestic residence is not permitted,” it said, bar in “grave and exceptional cases” to be decided by the local bishop. The Church only began allowing cremation in 1963.