Went to a funeral yesterday at a Catholic church. I was struck by how much ceremony was involved! It didn't take long and I had no idea what was going on. Anyway, I found it interesting, and I assume everything in the Catholic church is like that?

You need to attend a good Irish Catholic wake next to get the full cultural effect !!!

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If you think that is elaborate you need to follow a Serbian Orthodox ritual. They celebrate death for weeks, months and years with dinners, gatherings, liquor shots at the gravesite etc. after someone passes.

If they aint dead they will be with all that smoke and water sprinkled on them!

They need the ceremony, it's their last chance to put their hand in your pocket...

Depending on the priest a catholic funeral is pretty much very similar to a regular catholic church service except the rosary and the eulogy. Each bead on the rosary is a prayer there's 2 main ways to do the rosary. Each priest may do other things for a funeral than a regular service.

My mom was a devout Catholic and that’s the way I sent her out. That’s what she would have wanted.

Funerals.
Waste of time and $$.

I went to a Catholic funeral in Michigan about six years ago. Some young men and boys were wearing baseball caps in the church. Found that to be very different than my upbringing in the South.














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It ain't a funeral unless there's an altar call.

Seriously I've got a hellfire and brimstone preacher lined up for mine.

My wife's (and her) family are catholic, I'm Lutheran. There isn't alot of difference in the funeral, but the catholic wake, I can't sit through anymore!

Agree

Try a Russian funeral, unreal amount of flowers, food, and visiting. Plan for six hours or so. Even if you only knew the person by name, or it was the cousin of a friend of yours, you're still welcome to attend.

Why? What's the deal with the wake?

The only Catholic funeral I've been to was my brother's. His grandmother (on his mom's side, no relation to me) paid for everything (she's rich) but insisted on a Catholic funeral. Between being in shock still that my little brother was dead, and being worried about my Dad who was a mess, I guess I didn't notice too much odd about the funeral. They did do some sort of chanting thing where the Catholics attending the funeral would chant something back to the priest. And I think at one point they spoke in Latin too. I guess the thing I noticed most was at the ending of it, when people were walking out, they started ringing the church bells over and over. I thought that was kind of a nice touch.

Nothing wrong with that. Same kind of deal with the funeral I went to. I didn't understand most of it, but you could tell it meant a lot to the family.

Most catholics judge a funeral on how many attend.
FACT!

some priests put on a bigger show than others
my grandparents had one who really liked his precessions parade half the parish around the building before heading to the alter carrying the cross , flag and sculpture of Mary.
Italian guy

the polish and German priests were a lot shorter in that stuff an more substances to the homily

we had a Indian priest who was a nice guy but man I couldn't understand half what he said and when he got excited 1/8th

my 3 favorite priests had all served as Military chaplains all in Gulf War one all go cancer , surprise.

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