Diocese to entomb cremated remains left behind

By Tanya Connor
The Catholic Free Press

WORCESTER – Bishop McManus has invited funeral directors in Worcester to release unclaimed cremated remains to the St. John Cemetery System.
The bishop is to lead a final commendation of the ashes of these deceased persons at the annual All Souls’ Day Mass he is celebrating in Notre Dame Cemetery’s mausoleum chapel at 11 a.m., Nov. 2. The public is welcome to attend.
Afterwards, cemetery staff will entomb the remains – in labeled crematorium containers – in a crypt in the mausoleum, said James F. Brasco, director of the Diocesan Cemeteries Office. Notre Dame, a part of the cemetery system, has a mausoleum for caskets with a columbarium for urns.
By next week, funeral professionals must complete the paperwork for remains they want to release, including identification of the deceased and proof of attempts to contact their authorized representatives. Mr. Brasco said individual names will not be inscribed on the crypt front. He said the wording is to be: “In memory of those who await here in the hope of the resurrection of the body.”
Bishop McManus said he thought about entombing unclaimed remains after reading about those left at funeral homes. In Worcester, “the vast majority would be Catholics, or at least Christian,” he said.     
The idea took several years to “percolate,” he said. He talked with Msgr. Robert K. Johnson, who was then the diocesan director of the Office for Divine Worship and is now pastor of St. Joseph and St. Stephen Parish. Msgr. Johnson talked with Mr. Brasco about securing space at Notre Dame.
“We are giving out valuable crypt space” for the unclaimed remains, said Mr. Brasco. He said the non-profit cemetery system is funded through the Diocesan Expansion Fund and payments from client families. “This is a financial loss to the cemetery system. But the benefit is, we know that these remains are not being sheltered in an inappropriate place. … We will provide a place of peace, rest and prayer for those remains. Someday someone may come looking for those.”
Families seeking to claim these remains would need legal representation and would pay for disentombment, which currently costs about $1,500, he said.
“The ultimate reason why I’m doing this [entombment] is a catechetical one,” Bishop McManus said. “For centuries, the Church did not allow for cremation, because the Church understood it as … a rejection of the sanctity of the human body … created in the image and likeness of God.”
He said the Church now permits cremation, as long as it is not chosen as a rejection of Church teaching, and the remains are to be buried or entombed in a cemetery, not scattered or kept some other way.
“I want the Catholic faithful to realize it’s very important … that the burial rites of the Church” are carried out, he said. There are three liturgical components that make up the rite of Christian burial, the bishop noted. In addition to a proper Christian burial, these include a wake service with a Liturgy of the Word, and a Mass of Christian Burial to pray for the deceased person, that he or she will receive a merciful judgement.
“As you know, one of the corporal works of mercy is the burial of the dead,” Bishop McManus told funeral directors in an Oct. 4 letter about the planned entombment. “The Church has taken this work most seriously throughout her history” and does this to give souls rest, and “in anticipation of the resurrection,” and as “an expression of the dignity that each person is due as a child of God.”
These days, the required burial or entombment has not always happened, he noted. So, funeral homes have unclaimed remains and families have remains they don’t know what to do with.
The bishop’s letter said the crypt set aside at Notre Dame will be opened annually for entombment.
In the future, if remains kept by families, not just funeral homes, are included in this entombment, time would be needed to collect necessary information, Mr. Brasco said.
“But we’d love to give anyone in that situation the peace of mind that those remains are in a permanent place of prayer,” he said.
“A funeral director will want to do the best thing for families” – being sure where their loved ones’ unclaimed remains are, Mr. Brasco said. So, funeral homes tend to keep such remains.
“Every funeral home has concerns” about unclaimed remains, said Barbara Kazmierczak, past president of Massachusetts Funeral Directors Association. She is president of Worcester Funeral Inc., which includes Dirsa-Morin Funeral Home and Henry-Dirsa Funeral Service. Funeral homes need consent for the disposition of remains, she said. Some deceased people had no one to give that consent, or a guardian or power of attorney whose decision-making authority ended at death, she said.
“You can’t just randomly dispose of cremated remains,” she said. “It’s a human being that had a life.”
Anthony Athy, funeral director at Athy Memorial Home, said, “We’re going to look into it” to see if the funeral home has remains that fit its criteria and the diocese’s criteria. If so, “we will take advantage of this very generous offer,” he said. “I think we would be looking for people we know were Roman Catholic.”
Michael Marchand, owner and funeral director of Alfred Roy & Sons Funeral Home, said he occasionally encounters a situation of unclaimed remains, their funeral home has some, and they will take advantage of the diocese’s offer.
“I think it’s a wonderful gesture and well received from the funeral homes,” he said. “Everybody deserves to be in a final resting place where people can visit in a prayerful manner.”