Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 3:45 pm
Post subject: novel research help
As I start to write my novel (still researching) I have a question: Around 1924, would the Catholic Church have buried a person in the church cemetery who committed suicide? I have an ancestor who did so and is not in the church cemetery.
Thanks!
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marcelproustPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Jun 2014
Replies: 4773
Location: PolandBack to top |
Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 5:48 pm
Post subject: Re: novel research help
| dgawell wrote: | As I start to write my novel (still researching) I have a question: Around 1924, would the Catholic Church have buried a person in the church cemetery who committed suicide? I have an ancestor who did so and is not in the church cemetery.
Thanks! |
polish law required to bury the body at cemetery. Of course there were exceptions if someone died on the ship, he was threw to the water or if somebody decided to give his body for Medical University but information about the death was always registered in church books. You should go to the parish church of your deceased ancestor. There should be some informations in cemetery book.
How do you know that your ancestor is not in the church cemetery??
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Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:42 pm
Post subject: Good question
The church has a wonderful website for their cemetery and he isn't in the list of deceased/buried.
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marcelproustPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Jun 2014
Replies: 4773
Location: PolandBack to top |
Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 7:55 pm
Post subject: Re: Good question
| dgawell wrote: | | The church has a wonderful website for their cemetery and he isn't in the list of deceased/buried. |
maybe he was buried in different place. What is the website? can you You send the link?
_________________
My translations are voluntary, but they take a lot of time and effort, so whenever you want to send money it will be a very nice "Thank you" gift to me.
THANK YOU
PAYPAL: [email protected]
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dnowickiPO Top Contributor
Joined: 28 Dec 2011
Replies: 2950
Location: Michigan City, IndianaBack to top |
Posted: Sat Feb 25, 2017 8:30 pm
Post subject: Re: novel research help
| dgawell wrote: | As I start to write my novel (still researching) I have a question: Around 1924, would the Catholic Church have buried a person in the church cemetery who committed suicide? I have an ancestor who did so and is not in the church cemetery.
Thanks! |
Hi,
The answer to your question is at one and the time simple and complex. Catholic Church law, the 1917 Code of Canon Law, which remained in force until 1983, deals with the funerals and burial of suicides in Canon 1240.1.3. The pertinent sections of the Canon are translated as follows: Canon 1240.1: Ecclesiastical burial is denied, unless before death they shall have given some signs of repentance: ….3.(To) those who killed themselves according to a deliberate plan.
The Canon denies Christian burial to suicides. However, the Canon was not always applied as strictly as it is written. The loophole is found in the nisi/unless clause, which allowed pastors to apply discretion in rendering a decision. Although the following examples are from Chicago, where priests had a reputation for being liberal, they are from the time period while the 1917 Code was in force.
As a summer job during high school I worked in a Polish Catholic cemetery in Chicago and know that there was a section of the cemetery where the ground had not been blessed and that section was reserved for suicides. However, during the mid 1970s two young men, brothers, committed suicide about a year apart. I knew them since they both had worked for my father in his business. Both were buried with the usual funeral rites and in consecrated ground in a Catholic cemetery. Somehow I doubt that priests in villages in rural Poland at that time would have normally been quite so open minded.
I’m sure that what Marcel wrote about Polish law requiring cemetery burial is accurate for the post WWII period but the question of where in a cemetery a body is buried---in consecrated or in unconsecrated ground is a question of religious not civil practice.
Your question inspired me to do some internet research and I came across the attached PDF from the University of Wrocław regarding much more recent suicide research. An interesting section about old attitudes and practices regarding the burial of suicides can be found on pages 7 & 8 of the PDF.
Wishing you happy and fruitful researching,
Dave
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Posted: Sun Feb 26, 2017 7:47 am
Post subject: Thank you!
Traces of Religiosity gave me a great deal of insight on so many levels. I believe that this great uncle was not buried in the cemetery. The tragedy of this situation is that his father committed suicide in the previous decade (1919) and then his brother who went to America in 1912 also hung himself from a tree in the 1930's. All three men suffered from depression, I have been told and the one in the US was relatively successful. As I reflected when I discovered this, it occurred to me that the male line in my family has a strong thread of severe depression.
My great grandfather was eventually buried with his wife in the cemetery in the 1960's, so the thinking/rules had likely changed by then.
Thank you for this helpful resource. There are many thoughts that will assist me in writing about such a horrible time and the emotional struggles of the villagers who I believe were more harshly treated than many other villages in Poland since they had an SS training camp in their village and then the V-1 and V-2 missile research facility. next door.
If any one else has access to other documents such as this, I would greatly appreciate receiving them. You can PM me. A great deal of gratitude is in my thanks!
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