Because of the ban on urns in the church: the couple angry and disappointed – "Incomprehensible"

Created: 07/01/2023 18:33

By: Thomas Zimmerly

Planning for tomorrow: Regine and Dieter Goldbach want to go to an urn grave after their death.

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Anyone who wants to place an urn in the church in Hilgertshausen has had bad luck: there are legal, practical and also spiritual reasons against it.

Hilgertshausen-Tandern – More and more Germans want to be buried in an urn.

Regina and Dieter Goldbach also wish for an urn grave as their final resting place when they have to face their creator one day.

The couple from Hilgertshausen, 86 and 88 years old, are planning a funeral service in the local church of St. Stephen.

With people who accompany her life, with dignified speeches, appropriate music, pretty flowers and the urn with her ashes right next to the altar.

But nothing seems to come of it, because in Hilgertshausen the urn is not allowed into the church.

Urn ban in Bavarian community: "Our church is too small"

Michael Heinrich, pastor in the Catholic parish of Tandern and therefore also responsible for Hilgertshausen, points out that the political community of Hilgertshausen-Tandern is responsible for burials.

And the statutes stipulated that urns did not belong in the church, but "should remain in the mortuary until the burial," says Heinrich.

"As a pastor, I don't disregard that."

He receives secular support from his church curator and sacristan, Winfried Riedel, who adds: "Our church is too small." What if the parish regulations were changed?

"Then," says the pastor, "we'll have to deal with it in the parish association." He doesn't reveal what he thinks personally.

Not only legal and practical causes: "Body destroyed"

So there are legal and practical reasons why a requiem in the presence of an urn is forbidden in St. Stephen's.

The diocese of Augsburg, into which the parish community of Tandern is incorporated, adds a spiritual one.

"For over ten years now, the priests of the diocese of Augsburg have been required to refuse the setting up of urns in Catholic churches at the requiem," says Prof. Gerda Riedl, head of the main department for fundamental questions in the episcopal ordinariate.

"One reason for this lies in the fact that the body of the deceased is destroyed by the cremation, making it difficult to identify the personal dimension of the deceased."

The professor, who teaches dogmatics at the University of Augsburg, is even clearer.

She points out that “the Catholic Church strongly recommends burial of the dead, although urn burial by Catholics has been permitted under certain circumstances since July 5, 1963.

In this way, it becomes more obvious that the Christian existence and in particular the hope for the resurrection of the deceased is closely connected with Jesus Christ, who was laid in a tomb after his crucifixion before he rose from the dead.

And finally, the dignity of the human body, which, according to Catholic belief, has become the dwelling place of the Holy Spirit through baptism, is more strongly preserved and anchored in consciousness through burial.”

Pastor Michael Bartmann: "I've never heard that an urn shouldn't go into the church."

On the other hand, the diocese, Riedl continued, would very much welcome "if the coffins of the deceased - where space permits - would be laid out in the church during the requiem".

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"Theologically, that sounds good," says Pastor Michael Bartmann, head of the Röhrmoos-Hebertshausen parish association, who "has never heard of an urn not being allowed in the church."

For him "it is a matter of course" that they are placed in the church at funeral services.

According to Bartmann, who is convinced that a requiem with an urn is “just as dignified” as one with the coffin of the deceased, one has to be guided by reality.

For Regina Goldbach, on the other hand, the reasoning of the pastor and the diocese is "incomprehensible".

She had fallen out of time.

Therefore, as of today, she no longer wants to be buried in Hilgertshausen but in Baden-Württemberg, where her son lives.

Consolation is needed after these words.

He's from the community.

"We will look at the statutes," says Mayor Markus Hertlein.

Advice also comes from the diocese.

Professor Riedl recommends putting up a photo of the deceased.

And: "Anyone who wants a requiem in the presence of the deceased with subsequent burial in an urn could celebrate the requiem before the cremation of the deceased in the presence of the coffin."

You can find more current news from the district of Dachau at Merkur.de/Dachau.