The New Rite of Latin Catholic Church’s Funeral

Abstract

Thia article highlights the last changes of the funeral second-last ritual (2010) within the historical path that from the Sixteenth Century reaches the Second Vatican Council and that led to understand the rite: a) no longer as an “annex” to the sacrament of the anointing of the Moorish, but as a proper rite for the deceased faithful; b) no longer as the principal task of the presbyter, but as the task of the Christian community called, also in the rite of the funeral, to celebrate the Easter of his Lord; c) no longer in a solid way throughout the world, but by delegating pastoral adaptation to different languages and cultures to the territorial episcopal conferences. The last ritual, on the other hand, was required more than by a change in the ecclesiological paradigm, by a legislative change that is increasingly spreading the custom of cremation.