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

[SnoozingFox]

Totally understand that for Catholics this is a very sad time and many of them wish to pay their respects by filing past the coffin in St Peter's.

SO many people in footage just shown on the news taking photos on their phones. I mean. WTF?

Here’s an article

Doesn't a selfie mean that you have yourself in the foreground? So standing in front of the coffin? Seems disrespectful to me.

Amiens Cathedral
A basilica in Rome
Residenz Museum of Munich
Ummayad Mosque Damascas ( another Mosque as well but I can’t find it now)
Ruins of a Medieval monastery of St John the Baptist in Bulgaria

In the living room?!?! That’s creepy as f! Omg. How awful. You’re right that is incredibly disrespectful. I’d be opting out of that…..

Your post said it’s extremely rare for the body to be at home in the UK, the other poster @HaudYerWheeshtYaWeeBellend was saying it’s not rare in Scotland which is part of the UK, I’m in NI where it’s not rare either. All of my deceased relatives and most friends have had the body at home. The practice of going to the church the night before has existed alongside this for as long as I can remember but in my family we have always kept the body at home and left for the funeral mass. When people are brought to the church the evening before it can be used as an opportunity for those who couldn’t attend the funeral to come and show their respects, there would often be dozens of family friends.

Those Victorian semis with the two rooms downstairs, pantry, and outhouse usually reserved the better of the two rooms as the parlour for laying out dead.

Say a little prayer for them next time you're in a knocked through open plan brick house with a breakfast bar. This is what was there.

I’ve been to a wake like this too, suggest you read other related comments

I never said never. There’s a difference

Catholics can be cremated. Borh my parents were.

I think it is a memory for them, I do think roman catholics have a different attitude towards death I mean traditionally the coffin is at home and they have the wake round about them. If they didn't want phones they would have been told to put them away.

My older family members take photos by gravesides,

No you said it was rare, it’s possibly rare in your area, however it certainly isn’t rare in mine and other parts of the UK. It’s quite common!

Most Scottish catholics and my Irish friends who are catholic also have the body at home.

Im in England, it’s rare for my area as it’s mostly a protestant area however I’ve been to a few in England (mostly my catholic friends) over my years living here which in scale is rare.

Just for reference , Scotland is in the UK!

Wow. And all of them authentic.

Not just my experience tbh
Even if this concept is googled it’s widely noted as being rare around the world.
Its not just the UK that has Catholics

I thought the same thing. Found it deeply disturbing.

Edited to add that I am Catholic.

The only thing disrespectful here is your comment.

1. She didn't say it was disrespectful, certainly not "incredibly disrespectful"
2. How can something that is normal IN THAT CULTURE be disrespectful? Or creepy? It's just been explained that it's normal.

I'll add a
3 One last night in their own home, surrounded by friends and family sounds like a lovely tradition. Far from disrespectful

Nope it’s not creepy or disrespectful at all ✌️

Not necessarily that culture
Maybe more something more people did historically before things started to change in the 20th century.

Keeping people at home after death was quite normal in the 19th century and before.
It was considered respectful for the family to care for the body

If thé body is not embalmed, surely it starts to stink? I wonder if this is why heavily scented flowers such as lilies were common at funerals And présumably wakes?

No, cremation is allowed by the Catholic church as long as a Catholic requiem Mass follows or precedes the cremation and as long as the remains are buried in consecrated ground. What is to be avoided is the denial of the resurrection of the body.

What the Church doesn't allow (though lots of people do it) is the scattering of ashes in unconsecretated ground, i.e. not in a consecrated cemetery but over the ocean, in a river, at a favourite picnic spot, in your rose garden, or kept in an urn on your mantelpiece, turned into jewellery, divided among family members, etc. The Church insists on dignified treatment of the remains and prioritizing the basic tenet of Catholicism - the resurrection of the body.

Wrt the photos of the Pope lying in state - I'm RC and personally wouldn't do it, but I've been to many a very jolly wake and to others that were more sombre, with both open and closed coffins. Among Catholics, there's a wide variety of styles of celebrating the life of a beloved person who has died.

I found the horror of death and avoidance of the topic among other cultures a bit of a shocker when I first encountered it, and still see it as odd.

It’s embalmed.

I want to know what you mean by 'respectful'.

I don't think it means what you probably think it means.

Would you believe there is a guide on how to manage this issue on The Good Funeral Guide

If caring for them yourselves it’s all down to keeping the body cool and cleaning the deceased straight away.

Washing and preparing bodies was women's work in the UK; I used to know someone whose family traditionally did this. The same kind of women who would have been healers or birthing partners but specialised in corpse care instead. Respectful and skilled and humble and ever so slightly witchy.

I wouldn't personally take photos of the body in the open casket, but I see no problem with people doing so if they remain respectful. I think it might be cultural.

After all, the Vatican released pictures of the Pope in his coffin once ready to be displayed for the lying in state. Those pictures went around the world. Why is it disrespectful for people to take their own photos but not for the Vatican?

As I said, not something I would do, but we are all different.