Morbid

Death has seldom been more common place than it is today, but the Church of England's clergy are worried by a morbid attitude toward it. Last week the Convocation of Canterbury (a routine meeting) deplored the "unfortunate tendency to sentimentalize death." And, in so doing, they pointed up the growing popularity of cremation.

Said the Rev. Wilfrid R. Johnson of Truro: "People in these days 'pass away' or 'reach port.' They do not die. Sentimentality is spreading and it is encouraged by the action of scattering of ashes. . . . People will give extraordinary directions about the taking of their ashes to a particular spot or out to sea. ... It should be our duty to take a firm stand. . . . We are not called upon to bless popular practices."

Derby's Canon Francis J. Edmond agreed that burial requests are sometimes blasphemous: "One man left instructions that his body should be burned and his ashes scattered over his potato patch. That man was really trying to show his contempt for his own body."

The Rev. Francis L. Hilditch of Rickmansworth asked that each case be judged on its own merits. He knew a woman who carried her daughter's ashes everywhere. Said he: "This kind of morbid, sentimental and neurotic reaction might be avoided if the Church insisted upon the burial of the ashes as her established and normal practice."

The Convocation then authorized three types of services: 1) a burial service held in the church followed by cremation; 2) cremation followed by the full burial service in the church; 3) a service at the crematory followed by disposal of ashes.

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