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Admittedly, I get most of my information from 19th century novels–but I thought suicides were not allowed to be buried in “hallowed ground”–has this changed?
Yes, it has. IIRC it’s one of the things which got updated, not quite as a direct consequence of V.II, but in the years after it.
Partly it’s got to do with the recent understanding that most people who commit suicide do so while being non compos mentis, not in full posession of their mental faculties; a sort of “insanity defense”. Partly it stems from a change in the way of looking at one of the reasons which used to be given for not burying sucides in holy ground; while suicide is still considered very bad, we don’t know whether the person repented, and it is not our place to tell God not to forgive them. Suicide used to be considered “the unforgivable sin” because the person commiting it was viewed as basically giving the finger to the Divine Mercy; they were rejecting the possibility that things might get better and rejecting any forgiveness.
I got nothing but anecdote for you but I’m Cathilic and I’ve never seen a suicide (and I’ve seen a few) be barred from burial in a Catholic cemetary. Maybe they have some kind of “don’t ask, don’t tell” rule, but a few friends we all knew did themselves were still given full rites.
…and my understanding is that there has always been an “out” in Catholicism for suicides who were not sane when they killed themselves. So if you killed yourself and your parish priest was of the opinion that no one who was mentally sound would go so far as to kill herself, you’d get a normal funeral and be buried in hallowed ground. If your priest was of the opinion that suicides were evil people who rejected God’s grace, it was the unmarked grave somewhere outside the village for you.
Now the Roman Catholic Church just applies the logic that God can sort this whole thing out better than we mortals can, so it’s better to comfort the grieving family and friends with a proper funeral and burial and leave the rest up to a higher authority.
Also, besides the “insanity defense”, certain methods, including hanging, are not immediate so there’s time to repent between comitting the act and dying.
Slight hijack
Why do Catholics need to be buried in a Catholic cemetary, Baptists in a Baptist cemetary etc? If a Catholic was buried in a Protestant cemetary, accidently lets say, would they go to hell or what?
…which is a real catch-22, since if you believe the doctrine that committing suicide gives, not an end to pain, but an eternity of hellfire, then in order to commit suicide, you *must *be not in your right mind.
They don’t “need” to be buried there, but back in the old days cemetaries were literally located next door to a church, which operated and maintained them. So the members of the Baptist church got buried in “their” cemetary, the Catholics next to their own church, the Methodists over there by their church, etc.
My father wasn’t Catholic, but he was buried next to my mother in a Catholic cemetary. They didn’t ask any questions about whether he was Catholic or how he happened to die.
From age 14 through college summers I worked in my small town’s Catholic cemetery. I buried a few kids I knew who were killed drinking & driving. I also buried the older brother of a girlfriend after he killed himslef with auto exhaust, suffering from “failure to launch” depression.
Years and years ago, the Church did bury suicides in unmarked graves at crossroads. But, reconsidering the feelings of the family, they now perform normal burial and make every effort to console the grieving. It really hurts when a loved one kills him or herself, and a kind word is helpful and, because of the stigma of suicide, painfully rare. “Funerals are for the living, not the dead.”
Catholics have to be buried in Catholic cemeteries because it’s been consecrated according to their ritual. Priest can go to non-Catholic cemeteries and consecrate the whole shebang, places like Arlington National Cemetery, but the ritual only 'takes" for the Catholics buried there. Also, the plots are oriented with feet facing east so that everyone can greet the rising sun on Judgement Day.
For a long time, Catholics didn’t allow cremation, mainly because that’s what the Romans did. But by the 1970’s I was burying quite a few urns. Way, way back in time, the Church practiced catacomb display, so that people could view their loved ones’ remains, and be reminded of the transitory nature of this world as the flesh decayed.
(they kept the dogs out, but I dont’ know how they could have prevented rats & bugs). What counts is the eternal spirit.
Open cremation, as the Romans did, creates an extremely unpleasant smell. So does sitting on a stone shelf rotting away; which suited the Church’s educational purposes just fine. So the perfume business was cut off dramatically when Christianity took over the Roman Empire. This caused economic depression in the export center of aromatic spices and resins: Mecca/Medina. The previously cosmopolitan place became an intellectual backwater, open to evangelical takeover.
As a Catholic schoolchild I was taught that the consecrated cemetary was where Jesus would go to collect the “lambs” on judgement day. Anyone who was not buried in consecrated ground risked ebing skipped over and accientally sent to hell.
I always thought that was a bit of a conceit on the part of the priests, as God just seemed a little more capable than that. It was one of the first things that led me to question religion in general.
On a related note, you need to be careful of depictions of Catholicism seen in TV shows and movies. Many, many of these depictions are about 50 years out of date, and depict the Church prior to the Vatican II reforms. It’s pretty obvious that the vast majority of Hollywood writers have never been inside a Catholic church in their lives, and are relying on stories they heard from their grandparents. 