Scattering ashes still contentious: Vatican maintains ban but approves preservation in ‘sacred places’

ROME – In response to a new set of dubia, or doubts, on the Catholic Church’s cremation practices, the Vatican’s doctrinal office has reaffirmed a ban on spreading ashes in nature. It has also said, however, that they can be conserved in “sacred places”.

In an Oct. 30 letter, Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, president of the Italian Bishops’ Conference and Pope Francis’s special peace envoy for the war in Ukraine, asked the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith (DDF) about preservation of the ashes of the deceased.