Funerals & cremation

taken from The Catechism of the Catholic Church:

2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. It is God who remains the Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for his honor and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.

2281 Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family and nation, to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.

2282 If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation in suicide is contrary to the moral law.

Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

2283 We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance. The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives.

taken from The Catholic Answer Book, OSV

Q. Can people who have committed suicide now be buried with a Mass?

A. The Church generally denied Christian burial to suicides on the presumption that such a person had succumbed to an act of final despair, thus denying God’s mercy.

With the advent of modern psychology, we now understand that most people who commit suicide are not emotionally stable and are thus incapable of giving either the full reflection or the full consent necessary to commit a mortal sin. As a result, the Church does provide such individuals with Christian burial, both to console their families and to pray that they may experience in death the peace they so lacked in life.

Q. I recently read an article in which the author tried to console the family of a suicide victim. She said prayers should be offered that the poor person had received the grace of final repentance in his last moments. How it is possible to die in mortal sin and still be saved?

A. When the Church comes to moral conclusions, she always does so after taking into account the data which science can give on the nature of the human person. Therefore, biology, psychology and sociology are all helpful tools in telling us essential facts about the person who performs a particular action. One of the most important determinants of personal guilt is whether or not full consent was given to an action (the other two are objectively grave matter & full knowledge of evil.)

It is hard to imagine anyone in full possession of his or her mental faculties committing suicide. Thus the Church gives that person the benefit of the doubt by providing Christian burial, praying that the deceased will experience a merciful judgment.