to think taking photos of someone in a coffin is the height of disrespect?

Are you Catholic?
Doesn't sound it like it.

This part of the ritual of death and remembrance in the Catholic Church.

This is how it's done.
If you don't like it, I suggest you ignore it.

It's just a difference in views about death. The same as some people think its shameful not to have them buried within a certain time frame, some think cremation is shameful etc.
Photos of the dead aren't uncommon at all as a memory of the person, and to many the pope will have been very important to their life.

Please make sure to check that the cremations are timely. It's scandalous how long bodies are stored for after going down the hatch, in some cases. And the right ashes aren't necessarily delivered.

I don't disrespect your choice, I just don't trust this process because of evidence of poor practice that has made the news.

45 years ago we had a little business glazing photographs onto plates. We made 7 of a much loved grandad in his coffin which were despatched by the customer all over the world to relatives who couldn't get back in time to attend. I thought it was very thoughtful of them.

Personally I don’t see organ donation as a desecration of the body.
I just don’t like cremation because it’s so sudden and violent and a living person is reduced to a handful of ash within hours. I want a proper grave to visit.
Funeral pyres? Barbaric and undignified. But then I’m someone who doesn’t believe all cultures are equal.

@TheTigerWhoCameToBrunch do you see organ donation as desecration of the body? What do you think of cultures that have funeral pyre?

There’s a lot about the changes following the Second Vatican Council I don’t agree with, cremation being one item!

It's certainly not rare everywhere for catholics to have the body at home. Last two funerals I was at (Irish, catholic) were at home.

No idea what's the norm for catholics in GB.

That's pretty normal at an Irish funeral. Open coffin in the centre, family lined up around the wall, people walk in, look at, and frequently touch, the body. They might, if they are religious, say a little prayer. They then go and offer condolences to the family. You could be queuing for ages at a big funeral. I was at one recently for a young person and I'd say I queued for an hour.

People would only touch the body if they knew them. If you don't know the deceased, you wouldn't usually stop at the body but would go straight to the family.

I wish I had a picture of my beloved, he looked so peaceful. Completely transformed. I have one of me holding his hand and it’s comforting.

I took a selfie with my very dead sister…she’d laugh about it and find it highly amusing (I told her I was going to do it and she dared me to..last wishes and all that)

no one has ever seen it apart from me 🤷‍♀️

I’m sure my mum has a photo of her mum

Not sure I find it disrespectful at all - it’s very cultural

Catholics (I was raised one) are really into death and dead bodies etc. it's just what they do. I remember going to wakes in people's houses as a wee girl and the body was always there (along with the whisky and maudlin songs). It's kind of a death cult really - the key holy image is dead Jesus on the cross, all blood, nails, thorns and the spear. The stations of the cross (pictures around the church that you visit in order and pray at) are violent and bloody, lots of Catholics have a picture in their home of Jesus opening up his chest and showing guests his sacred heart. Taking pictures of a fully clothed, clean guy with no obvious marks of violence on him in a nice pretty lined coffin is fairly mild in comparison.

I would bet many of the people taking photos were not doing it for cultural reasons

It's a nurse thing too.

My family is Irish Catholic, some of them very devout, cremation is not the taboo it once was, the funeral mass takes place in the church then people are cremated soon after. Until very recently there was only one crematorium in all of NI so possibly more burials just because crematorium slots have been difficult to obtain quickly (most funerals here take place within 2-5 days and I have seen people take photos of the deceased although I haven’t myself).

My mam passed in July from dementia and I went to funeral home to see her and she looked very peaceful but I did not want to see her again and last seen her day before funeral but with coffin closed . My father at end of life and wants pure cremation which I’m very grateful for as found it very upsetting with mam as I think funeral homes so lonely and sad . Myself I will be having pure cremation myself. I understand we all handle grief in our own ways

I once attended a Seventh Day Adventist funeral.
People queued up to take photos of the gentleman in his open casket.
I did not partake but clearly this was culturally permitted.
It was a truly beautiful celebration of life, with gospel singing and rejoicing prayers.

As a Catholic we always open the windows at the point of death ( just prior ) so the soul can do that.

No idea if that’s just an old Irish Catholic thing although I do know French friends do the same.

I feel the same.I saw my husband die after months of suffering.From the moment he took his last breath I knew his soul had flown out of him, something was not there any more, just an empty worn out suit of clothes which was his mortal remains.After an hour when the nurses had washed him, we returned to his room to collect his belongings.What was now lying on the bed was not my husband but an empty shell.We then went home to grieve.The undertaker rang me the following day to ask if I would like to have him in his usual clothes.My son and I took a set of his clothes to the funeral parlour, I was asked if I would like to go and dress him, I declined saying I did not wish to see him as a dead body.We left the clothes for the undertakers to do it.
I was a nurse all my working life so was no stranger to dead bodies, to me it was always the same, at the moment of death the body changes in appearances the part that was that person has gone out of it.That part is the soul.The soul is the invisible part of you, the immortal part that does not die.As a catholic I pray it goes back to God.

It’s accepted in canon law now so 🤷‍♀️ It’s all fine from a religious point of view too

OK
Its extremely rare everywhere for Catholics
Its not not allowed, it’s just extremely rare

Extremely rare doesn’t mean never
Its just not the norm anymore.

Ah no, it is beautiful to return to the earth