Q: After reading your response to a recent blog posting regarding the use of Funeral Rites, I have a question.
Due to not wanting my body to be embalmed, I have requested the funeral home bury my body within 24 hours of death. In my home State, current law relating to funerals indicates that a body need not be embalmed if entombment occurs within a 24-hour time period after death.
Thus, no body or ashes from an incineration would be available for my desire to also have a Catholic funeral mass. Would the Church, in this instance, permit a funeral mass?
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A: The Catholic Church not only permits but encourages a funeral mass for all Catholics who die, even if the mass takes place after interment.