Last month, the Dominican Friars of the Province of St. Joseph announced that “St. Thomas Aquinas is making his first ever U.S. tour 750 years after his death.” But surely St. Thomas would object that this isn’t strictly accurate, since “it belongs to the notion of man to be composed of soul, flesh, and bones,” and it’s only his skull that is touring the United States as a relic, while his soul enjoys the yet-greater glory of Heaven.
And notably, it’s only his skull on tour, while other parts of his body are on display in churches across Italy (and beyond). There’s a bone from his left arm in his old priory in San Domenico Maggiore, a rib bone at the cathedral in his hometown of Aquino, and so forth. Such news raises a natural objection: isn’t it hypocritical for the Church to forbid Catholics from having their cremated ashes scattered, and then “scatter” the body parts of the saints around the world?
But this objection misses the mark. As the (then-Congregation, now) Dicastery for the Doctrine of the Faith explained back in 2016, there are a few reasons why the Church prohibits the scattering of ashes. One is to remind us that “by death the soul is separated from the body, but in the resurrection God will give incorruptible life to our body, transformed by reunion with our soul.” In other words, when we pray in the Creed that we “look forward to the resurrection of the dead, and the life of the world to come,” we’re announcing our belief that death isn’t the end. It’s not the end of our existence, and it’s not even the end of our bodily existence. It’s for this reason that we take the body very seriously, even in death. It’s why we want to avoid anything that treats the body in a disrespectful manner, as well as any appearance of us “discarding” our dead bodies.
But there’s a second reason, as well:
The reservation of the ashes of the departed in a sacred place ensures that they are not excluded from the prayers and remembrance of their family or the Christian community. It prevents the faithful departed from being forgotten, or their remains from being shown a lack of respect, which eventuality is possible, most especially once the immediately subsequent generation has too passed away.
You can pray for the faithfully departed wherever you like, but being by their graveside in a cemetery helps to underscore the reality of death and of our hope for the resurrection. If, instead, you scatter the ashes of your loved ones over the water (or worse, in Disneyland), that place is gone.
Contrast this with the example of saints like St. Thomas Aquinas. The relics of the saints are preserved in various churches (and even travel around from church to church) not because we think the body is trivial, but precisely because we know it’s not. The relics of the saints are placed in sacred places, churches, and the faithful can come and ask the saints’ intercession. Instead of having one place dedicated to their body and their memory, a particular saint may have many. But their relics are still strikingly (and to some, unnervingly) bodily. The body isn’t discarded, but remains in its proper place in our prayer and contemplation.
So rather than a contradiction, what we really find is a coherent view of the dignity of the human person and the human body. St. Paul reminds us that “Christ has been raised from the dead, the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep” (1 Cor. 15:20). As Christ rose bodily from the dead, the saints (not only the canonized, but all of those who die in friendship with God!) will likewise rise bodily from the grave one day. And so we treat our bodies with dignity, even in death, and with a special reverence for the bodies of those who we know to be saints.