Being sent a sympathy card with inappropriate comments

Well yes, that is rude. If you attend, you should sign a visitors book or great the chief mourners and express your regrets. Turnign up isn't the rude part though.

Can you give an example of the inappropriate messages, OP?

Definitely sounds like a weird fetish

Is she trying to get back in touch with you.

I'm Irish and although I'd never do this, so things have changed, my parents acknowledge the deaths of so many people they hardly know.

It happened to me with a christening. Normal church service and halfway through we all had to turn round to the font (at the back) and welcome little Archibald and listen to all the vows. So his parents and their friends and relatives had randomers like me at their ceremony.

Ok, fair enough. Can you be sure they didn't know her? I wouldn't expect to recognise everyone at a funeral tbh.

@LandArt this is true. But the organisers of the funeral could turn her away if they knew what she looked like? I did say that if the communication was threatening she could contact 101, which is also true.
It doesn't help that OP wasn't more specific about the content of the card. I know writing them can be difficult for some people but it would appear this was purely in malice?

We’re not catholic, and the people I’m referring to were there for the funeral

And I’m telling you, that as the immediate family of the deceased we found it odd and kind of rude that they didn’t bother to say hello to us – the bereaved – or offer condolences

Take or leave the information

@FinkleFlint but maybe they knew her? Are they not entitled to come to grieve, you dont own her life. Not introducing themselves is odd but it's not always possible to do this if the bereaved family are surrounded and it can all be very socially awkward. I thought it was lovely to see people I didn't know at my mother's funeral, it made me feel she was more than just my mother and her life had touched so many others along the way.

Waiting to be invited to the wake, free food and drink.
Weirdos

Obviously I didn't mean invading in the sense that you were doing anything wrong, but odds are they were there the same time, same place the day before and the day after. You were the interlopers, they were the dedicated congregation.

Sounds like she’s perhaps a bit unstable, or just plain odd. Usually best to ignore people like that than to give them the reaction they’re looking for.

I'm serious, churches are open to the public. I had a great aunt who went to Mass every day, she didn't turn around and leave just because it was a funeral. It's very normal. Nothing about nosying at a funeral, and everything about attending their religious worship as usual.

😂😂😂

Yeah right. It was a funeral mate

Was it a church service? Some people go to Mass daily, some days it's 10 o'clock Mass, some days that Mass is a funeral Mass. In that case, you're invading their space rather than the other way round.

Some random people turned up to my mum’s funeral who none of us knew. They didn’t introduce themselves or offer condolences. Just lurked around the back of the church. Found it odd as fuck and kind of rude.

Yes, absolutely. Mine too. You said it much better than me.

I tend to think sending a card is almost always a compassionate thing to do. Obviously, the inappropriate comments however are another thing. What is inappropriate about them?

As for the funeral - anyone can attend a funeral. I have been quite bemused to hear people say, "but we didn't invite her to the funeral". I didn't even know that was a thing until fairly recently. I have a few lovely but buttoned up English friends who I've learnt feel this way but it makes no sense to me - I was brought up with anyone who wanted to turning up, which does tend to make catering for the wake challenging.

In many cultures, including mine, it would be very normal to go along to the funeral of someone you haven't seen in a long time, or to the funeral of a close relative of someone you haven't seen in a long time. Especially if you live in the area and can just pop in and sit at the back of the church.

Even if the bereaved person is someone you aren't friends with and haven't spoken to in a decade, and their relative is someone you've never met and you only found out about the death by reading the paper? I don't think that's normal at all. I think it's intrusive and creepy.

Bin it (but take photos of it just in case her creepy behavior continues and you need evidence).
Ignore her
Sorry for your loss.

Would you feel able to elaborate on what you mean by 'inappropriate comment'? You don't have to repeat exactly what it said if you don't want to, but do you mean she writes something genuinely and deliberately nasty and cruel?

Or do you just mean that it's something well-meaning but tactless? Or just that it's inappropriate to send a card at all to people she hasn't spoken to in years?

I think that if she's sending ordinary sympathy cards to people she doesn't speak to and turning up uninvited at funerals, that falls into the category of weird/a bit creepy and maybe tipping over into the sort of obsessive, boundary-crossing behaviour I'd expect from someone who is possibly moderately mentally ill. (Not that this makes it any less creepy for the for the person on the receiving end, of course.)

But if she's sending cards and writing messages like 'I'm glad your relative's dead and I'm laughing at your grief' then I'd say the vile old bag needs locking up.

What were the comments?

And is her name Martha?!?

You can’t stop someone attending a funeral unless they have a restraining order! And sending a sympathy card isn’t ‘harassment’ unless what she’s writing in them is threatening, but the OP hasn’t told us what she writes, apart from saying it’s ‘unsympathetic’.