Funerals

A Policy & Guide for Funerals

Every baptized Catholic has a right to full access to the funeral rites of the Church. Any registered parishioner has a right to be buried from OLMC. If a registered parishioner has a relative who requests to be buried from OLMC, this request will be considered, but the pastor of the relative’s church has jurisdiction in this, and that jurisdiction must be respected.

Funeral Masses are never celebrated in the Triduum (from Holy Thursday to Easter), or on the Sundays of Advent, Lent, and the Easter season. At a funeral Mass on Ash Wednesday, the blessed ashes are not distributed.

Requests to have the traditional requiem provided by priests of OLMC in other churches will be considered, but the faithful are discouraged from even asking for this service.

Private funerals are discouraged. The whole community should share in the blessed burden of praying for the faithful departed. A requiem also helps the living of the community prepare for their deaths.

Catechumens may receive the full funeral rites of the Church.

Non-Catholic, but baptized, Christians may be buried with the requiem if they were attending the Mass regularly, and provided the next of kin has no serious objection. Non-baptized persons may not be buried with the funeral rites of the Catholic Church.

A child who dies before baptism or a still-born or miscarried child may be given funeral rites from OLMC. However, we are forbidden to pray for the souls of children who have been baptized and who die before the age of reason, since they go immediately to heaven and spend no time in purgatory. So in their case, a votive Mass of the Angels is celebrated, using the color white.

The remains of stillborn or miscarried children should be given a Christian burial if at all possible. The remains may be placed in an individual or common burial area.