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Charlie Traffas
Charlie Traffas has been involved in marketing, media, publishing and insurance for more than 40 years. In addition to being a fully-licensed life, health, property and casualty agent, he is also President and Owner of Chart Marketing, Inc. (CMI). CMI operates and markets several different products and services that help B2B and B2C businesses throughout the country create customers...profitably. You may contact Charlie by phone at (316) 721-9200, by e-mail at ctraffas@chartmarketing.com, or you may visit at www.chartmarketing.com.
Religion
2004-07-01 09:14:00
Cremation... is it a moral or spiritual issue?
:  Is cremation a moral or spiritual issue?  Is it now or was it ever considered to be a desecration of the body.
ANSWER:  My answer to both questions... NO!    Cremation is no longer a moral or spiritual issue.  Christians, Jews and Muslims believe in some kind of life after death for the human soul, along with God's judgment on each person.   Death of the body is an evident fact: every living thing in this world undergoes corruption and dies.   But our faith is certain: the human soul (the principle of each life) continues to live on after death, although in a different situation, according to the judgment of God, which is based on what that person did or did not do during their lifetime in this world.     The corruption or disintegration of the human body can take place over a period of time, as with burial in a cemetery, or it can happen swiftly, even instantly - as in the case of the 3000 persons killed in the catastrophes of September 11, 2001.    At the moment of death each human soul goes before the judgment of God, having made his/her final choice of good or evil, which determines their ultimate situation in eternity.    The souls of still-born infants, and of children murdered by abortion, also go to the judgment of God to receive their consolation.   Such persons, dying in their innocence, go directly to heaven by Baptism of Desire, that desire being either on the part of their parents or on the part of our common mother, the Church.  The destruction of their bodies, whether swift or delayed, is a moral issue only for those who perpetrate abortion.   But the death of a still-born infant in the womb, which is not intended by anyone, is not a moral or spiritual issue.   It is an accident of nature.In former times, most pagan peoples considered death to be final | and the end of everything.   As a sign of that denial of life after death, it was customary to burn the body of a deceased person.    Christians and Jews objected to such cremation, which denies the truth of the eventual reunion of the body with its soul at the end of time.   No longer is cremation interpreted as a denial of life after death.  Most bodies commence the process of corruption within a few hours after the soul leaves the body.   Thus the Church does not object to cremation, which is merely a swifter means of disintegration of the body than is burial in the ground.   The Catechism of the Catholic Church states simply: "The Church permits cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body" (paragraph 2301).   Cremation is even encouraged in times of plague and war, in order to diminish the spread of disease.Cremation has never been considered a desecration of the body.  It is simply a hastening of the process of death with final disintegration of the body.   The cremains (remains of cremation) are treated with reverence, and are buried or reposed in a fitting place, as are the bodies in a cemetery.
 
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