Answered
by Legionary of Christ Father Edward McNamara, professor of liturgy and
dean of theology at the Regina Apostolorum university.
***
Q: I read the instruction on burial and
cremation. What about the burial of a Catholic who donates his full body
for medical research? How can his “memory” be retained in the Church? —
F.D., Mumbai, India
A: First of all, I think it is necessary
to address the question as to the legitimacy of such donations. Although
in earlier times there was some hesitation as to this point, the Church
later permitted the use of bodies for medical research.
Pope Pius XII, in his May 14, 1956,
allocution to a group of eye specialists, suggested that “The public
must be educated. It must be explained with intelligence and respect
that to consent explicitly or tacitly to serious damage to the integrity
of the corpse in the interest of those who are suffering, is no
violation of the reverence due to the dead.”
That statement is echoed in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, which says in No. 2296:
“Organ transplants are in conformity with
the moral law if the physical and psychological dangers and risks to the
donor are proportionate to the good sought for the recipient. Organ
donation after death is a noble and meritorious act and is to be
encouraged as an expression of generous solidarity. It is not morally
acceptable if the donor or his proxy has not given explicit consent.
Moreover, it is not morally admissible to bring about the disabling
mutilation or death of a human being, even in order to delay the death
of other persons.”
Likewise, the Catechism states in No. 2301:
“Autopsies can be morally permitted for
legal inquests or scientific research. The free gift of organs after
death is legitimate and can be meritorious. The Church permits
cremation, provided that it does not demonstrate a denial of faith in
the resurrection of the body.”
In his 1995 encyclical “The Gospel of Life,” Pope St. John Paul II called organ donation an example of “everyday heroism.”
Some years later he was also clear about
the merits of donating one’s body to science when he addressed the
participants of the Ninth Assembly of the Pontifical Academy for Life on
February 24, 2003.
He said, “All, believers and
non-believers, acknowledge and express sincere support for these efforts
in biomedical science that are not only designed to familiarize us with
the marvels of the human body, but also to encourage worthy standards
of health and life for the peoples of our planet.”
In the same address, he went on to say,
“The Church respects and supports scientific research when it has a
genuinely human orientation, avoiding any form of instrumentalization or
destruction of the human being and keeping itself free from the slavery
of political and economic interests.”
In October 2014, Pope Francis met with the
Transplantation Committee for the Council of Europe and called the act
of organ donation “a testimony of love for our neighbor.”
The U.S. bishops conference has addressed the issue in its “Ethical and Religious Directives for Catholic Health Care Services.”
Thus the overall principle of the legitimacy of organ donation and donation for science is fairly well established.
The Church warns, however, that this must
always be considered a gift, and that human remains not be used for
commercial purposes. Further, it insists that human remains must be
treated with reverence and respect.
The recent document on cremation
reiterates the principle already stated in several other documents, that
cremated remains should be buried with the same reverence given to the
bodies of the faithful departed. Therefore, the remains, or the ashes in
the case of cremation, should eventually be entombed. Some dioceses
even donate grave sites and burial services for those who donated their
bodies to science.
In most cases institutes that receive
donated remains have established protocols which foresee the return of
the remains or the ashes for burial after a set period. This would
usually be about 12 weeks, although in some special cases it can be
after one or two years.
Since it is usually impossible to have a
funeral with the remains shortly after death, as this would render the
body unsuitable for research purposes, a memorial Mass without the body
can be celebrated so as to entrust the soul of the deceased to God and
offer the family the opportunity of mourning together.
When the remains are released to the
family, another Mass may be offered. This may be taken from the third
section of Masses for the Dead in the Roman Missal: “Various
Commemorations.”
The rubric of this section states: “This
Mass may be celebrated when the news of the death is first received or
on the day of final burial, even on days within the Octave of the
Nativity of the Lord, on days when an Obligatory Memorial occurs, and on
weekdays, with the exception of Ash Wednesday and weekdays during Holy Week.”
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