CREMATION OF THE DEAD.

Taranaki Daily News, 4 December 1918, Page 2

CREMATION OF THE DEAD.

THE RELIGIOUS ASPECT,

VIEWS OP BISHOP CLEARY,

The attitude of the- Roman Catholic Church towards the system of cremation as opposed to earth burial was discussed by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Auckland, Dr. H. W. Cleary, yesterday. "It was quite natural thai the epidemic which has been raging in Auckland for some weeks, and the difficulties regarding' interment to which it gave rise, should zevive some interest in ineineration as an alternative to earth ■burial," said Br. Cleary. "The church to which 1 belong has always favored earth burial, but in cases of public danger arising from great mortality, as in battle, plague, or earthquake, it permits and even urges a departure from the accepted custom, and ; n favor of cremation, f have nothing to say either for or against the proposal te- erect a crematorium in one of our Auckland cemeteries. In every considerable centrt. of population a certain number of people would prefer, on assumed grounds of hygiene, incineration as a method of disposing of their remains, and if the necessary plant for doing so «e provided for them wholly or partly at the public cost, T, for one, shall raise iio objection whatsoever. The proposal has, however, little or no practical interest for practising members of my faith; for, according to the present discipline of our church, Catholics may. not be members of crematorium societies or demand crsmation for their bodies. This legislation arose in part out of certain circumstances on Continental Europe, to whieli I need not now refer. But, of conns, the church's attitude on the matter is one of variable discipline, not of dogma, and the discipline hereon is her purely domestic concern.

"The comparatively little reading winch I. have done en this subject, stopped short in 1!)09. I am, therefore, not in a position to judge as to whether the mertieologieal objection \to cremation has yet been satisfactorily met. At that ime (11)09) the experiments of the bacteriological Mantegazza, and of some other scientists, left me unconvinced as to some of the chief arguments which I had seen advanced in favor of cremation as against proper earth burial as a mode of disposing of the dead. I say 'proper' earth turial, for I am, and have lon<' been, strongly in favor of a simple earth burial, with thin and perishable coffins, and the avoTdanee of such abuse* as leaden caskets, family vaults, bricked graves, and all such other liindrhiu-es to the cleansing and purifying action of mother earth. One of the needs of ihe hour is funeral reform, and there flight well be a similar demand for cremation if srreater simplicity' and true 'earth-to-earth' hygiene replaced the present fooljob and costly abuses that make fuDorala a grief to moTo than the mourners."