The Vatican said on Tuesday that Catholic families may ask to preserve “a minimal part of the ashes” of a relative in a place of significance to the deceased, softening a previous mandate that ashes could be kept only in “sacred spaces” like cemeteries.
The instructions come seven years after the Vatican first issued guidelines to respond to what it called an “unstoppable increase” in cremation. The guidelines banned the scattering of ashes “in the air, on land, at sea or in some other way,” and said that ashes could not be kept at home.
The new instructions allow families to keep a small portion of ashes in a place that has meaning for the deceased “provided that every type of pantheistic, naturalistic, or nihilistic misunderstanding is ruled out.” In keeping with the 2016 rules, the remaining ashes had to be kept in a sacred place, the doctrinal office said, according to a note posted on the Vatican’s website.
The new rules also allow ashes to be mixed in a common urn as long as the identity of each deceased person is marked “so as not to lose the memory of their names.”
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