(Australian) Funeral louts told the end has come

Thursday January 20, 2005
The Guardian

Australians could soon be mourning the demise of pop songs and lurid jokes at funerals - not to mention football jerseys lovingly laid out on the casket of loved ones.

The Catholic church has vowed to get tough on irreverent funeral practices after complaints from parish priests about the loutish behaviour of some mourners. The church says funerals are acts of worship and that personal mementos should be kept for the graveside or the wake.
...

"In one instance, somebody giving a eulogy brought a stubby of beer up to the lectern, undid the top and started to drink it. To take those sorts of liberties when people are grief-stricken, I think, does extend the boundaries of propriety."
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The Catholic church in New Zealand said it had no plans for a similar crackdown, but beer bottles would not be permitted by any priest.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/australia/story/0,12070,1394207,00.html

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It is true that people should have some respect for the dead. That is just a matter of taste.

On the other hand, the Catholic church sure has been handing out a lot of mandates.

... the dead, so maybe we need to re-establish the importance of the wake.

a wake is a good place for lurid jokes and inappropriate behavior. The Irish are real good at this.

The day my mother died was, of course quite sad. Her passing was unexpected, and she lived in a city about 800 miles away. I have a brother and a sister nearby, and we got together that evening, and after an hour or two were laughing ourselves silly over things Mom had said and done. It was a great way to remember her.

We were all appropriately respectful at her service several days later.

That doesn't mean that there can't be jokes and memories. Have all the fun you want before or after the funeral, but a Church is a sacred space. Would you accept outrageous behavior at a Buddhist shrine? For the record, I volunteer with the Parish Martha & Mary group to serve meals to the bereaved after the funeral. The last time, the family brought several coolers of beer as requested by the deceased and no one even blinked. That was in the Church basement after the funeral Mass.

sheesh - I can't say what I REALLY think about catholics because I would certainly get deleted too and probably tombstoned. And tatooed. And drunk.

Some of the best and most moving funerals I have been to have been "non-traditional", and I am sure that ritual aside if there is a good place for someone to be after they croaked they made it there all on their own without a priest.