Day after day, the cluster of protest placards outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., kept changing.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cNot brain dead\u201d gave way to \u201cGive Terri water.\u201d Hopeful appeals to Gov. Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush turned into cardboard cries of hopelessness.<\/p>\n\n
Then a new message appeared in the last days before the death of Terri Schiavo: \u201cNo cremation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Protesters were bracing for the next hot controversy. Now they wanted to know if her husband would go ahead and do what he had vowed to do, cremating her body despite the furious opposition of her highly traditional Roman Catholic parents.<\/p>\n\n
As Michael Schiavo once told the Tampa Tribune: \u201cShe never wanted to be put in the ground with bugs. She always told me that.\u201d Thus, he planned \u2014 backed by the courts \u2014 to have her cremated and her ashes taken to his family\u2019s plot near Philadelphia.<\/p>\n\n
Bob and Mary Schindler were appalled, arguing that cremation would violate their daughter\u2019s Catholic faith. The parents have requested a wake, an open-casket funeral Mass and traditional burial in Florida. In one of their many pleadings to Pinellas County Court, the Schindlers argued that Michael Schiavo \u201chas consistently exhibited a lack of respect\u201d toward Catholicism.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cEven in death, he isn\u2019t going to allow them a shrine, a place to go talk to her,\u201d Franciscan monk Paul O\u2019Donnell told reporters, speaking for the family. \u201cWon\u2019t he at least give them her dead body?\u201d<\/p>\n\n
This debate is stark evidence that many Catholics continue to struggle with changes made by the modern church. After centuries of opposition to cremation, the Code of Canon Law now states: \u201cThe Church earnestly recommends the pious custom of burial be retained; but it does not forbid cremation, unless this is chosen for reasons which are contrary to Christian teaching.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The hardest liturgical changes to accept are those linked to emotional events at the crossroads of life \u2014 birth, marriage and death.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cCremation is no longer considered shocking to most Catholics,\u201d said Philip Lawler, editor of Catholic World Report. \u201cBut, overwhelmingly, traditional Catholics would lean toward a traditional burial. The older the Catholic, the more likely they would remember the traditions against cremation.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
The modern Catechism of the Catholic Church hints at the ancient roots of this controversy, noting that cremation is permitted, \u201cprovided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in the resurrection of the body.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
Early Christian believers were familiar with pagan cremation rituals and saw martyrs burned at the stake, noted Father C. John McCloskey III, of the Faith and Reason Institute in Chicago. The Jewish apostles knew that Judaism rejected cremation.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cThe early church also defined itself in opposition to Manichaeism, Gnosticism and other heretical sects that taught that the soul is good and the body is bad. So it didn\u2019t matter what you did with the body. The soul was all that mattered.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cBut the church kept saying, \u2018No, the body is good. It should be honored and treated with respect.\u2019\u2026 Thus, you had an emphasis in church tradition on funeral rites and the burial of the body in ground that has been blessed.\u201d<\/p>\n\n
If Catholics choose cremation, the church still teaches that ashes should be stored in a holy place, as opposed to being kept in an urn on the fireplace mantle. Church authorities frown on rites that conclude with human ashes being scattered into nature, even though the ocean-loving relatives of John F. Kennedy, Jr., did precisely that in 1999, with the help of a priest.<\/p>\n\n
In the Schiavo case, said McCloskey, it\u2019s important that the church wants Catholics to ask moral questions about their choices as they honor a deceased loved one. Thus, it is still appropriate to ask why someone \u2014 such as Michael Schiavo \u2014 chooses cremation over a traditional burial.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cYou have to think that the goal here is to deny her family and the pro-life movement a grave, a place where they can have a shrine in her honor,\u201d he said. \u201cBut, honestly, if there is a grave of any kind, no matter where it is or what it is, people are going to find it.<\/p>\n\n
\u201cAfter all is said and done, people are still going to want to go there and pay tribute to Terri Schiavo.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Day after day, the cluster of protest placards outside the hospice in Pinellas Park, Fla., kept changing. \u201cNot brain dead\u201d gave way to \u201cGive Terri water.\u201d Hopeful appeals to Gov. Jeb Bush and President George W. Bush turned into cardboard cries of hopelessness. Then a new message appeared in the last days before the death […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":610,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[37,168,1532,339],"class_list":["post-1327","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-abortion","tag-catholicism","tag-catholics","tag-euthanasia"],"yoast_head":"\n