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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   1574 thread views

Small-Scale Question Sunday for November 3, 2024

Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?

This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.

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As part of a Catholic family we don't believe in any particular sanctity of the body once the soul leaves it. Accordingly, we don't visit graves, because nobody is there to see.

You can believe what you wish, but this doesn't align with my understanding of the approach Catholicism (and Christianity more broadly) takes towards the dead. In fact, it rather startles me that you would present this set of beliefs as typical of a Catholic family!

In particular, my understanding of the Catholic tradition is that Catholics are all about believing in the sanctity of dead bodies -- if not, what's with all the relics, and pilgrimmages to the burial places of saints?

What I was taught as an evangelical mirrors this, that dead bodies needed to be given respect and a Christian burial as Christ promises not just a spiritual resurrection but a resurrection of our mortal bodies like his body. Furthermore, I always understood that Christianity viewed the body as a fundamental part of the person, not a mere vessel for the soul, a view which I was taught was gnostic.

In confirming my suppositions, I came across this Papal letter by Pope Francis discussing the Catholic view of burial:

"By burying the bodies of the faithful, the Church confirms her faith in the resurrection of the body, and intends to show the great dignity of the human body as an integral part of the human person whose body forms part of their identity.... Furthermore, burial in a cemetery or another sacred place adequately corresponds to the piety and respect owed to the bodies of the faithful departed who through Baptism have become temples of the Holy Spirit...

With some minor quibbling, this also represents the evangelical view of death and burial that I learned as a child. I certainly knew, and know, Catholics and Protestants alike who believe people's bodies are simply vessels and 'prisons' to be escaped from, but this was always more of a folk belief than the Gospel, and when I was a theologically precocious evangelical kid I understood it to be incorrect. The one big thing about which Jesus and Paul agreed with the Pharisees was the resurrection of the body!

I respect that you have your own views about the meaning of death and burial, but I wanted to make it clear that what you said doesn't reflect the way Christian tradition has generally understood the meaning of the body and of death.

Just to add to this- visiting a gravesite today literally has an indulgence attached. It’s not just that Catholics are allowed to visit graves, but that it is officially encouraged.

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