Q: Is there anything liturgically amiss about an urn with cremated remains being placed in a casket for the celebration of a funeral Mass, after which the urn would be removed from the casket for interment in a columbarium? In other words, the body has been cremated before the funeral, but instead of an urn being the visible container during the funeral, a casket containing an urn is the visible container. Would a pall still be prohibited by the rubrics in such a case because there isn’t a body, only cremated remains?
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A: I don’t know of any legislation on this.
However, I perceive a slippery use of signs that lacks integrity. Why is the urn placed in the casket? Is it to make people think there’s a body there when there’s not? This doesn’t lend itself to authentic liturgy.
The pall is not permitted in case of cremation (OCF 434), not in the mere absence of a casket. Again for the sake of the integrity of signs, I think people should see the urn.
But that’s just my opinion.