Page 16 - COBH EDITION 1st NOVEMBER DIGITAL VERSION

‘What’s the story with the eulogy?’ - Trevor Laffan

My grandmother died when I was a youngster, and she
was laid to rest in the local cemetery. She was in her
eighties when she died and had worked all her life, only
retiring when she hit her mid- seventies.

She was a mid-wife and spent her early years living on
Spike Island which meant she had to get a launch to
Cobh whenever she was needed, often in bad weather,
at all hours of the day and night. She delivered more
than two thousand babies in her time, so she was well
known.
On the day of her funeral, there was, as you might expect, a large crowd of mourn-
ers at the graveside. When the coffin was lowered into the grave, an elderly man
stepped forward and started speaking. I can’t remember exactly what he said, only
that he was talking about my grandmother and about some of the things she had
done during her lifetime. It was the first time I had heard a eulogy.
I’m not sure if it was pre-arranged or if anybody had been expecting it but it came
as a complete surprise to me and at the end of it there was a round of applause.
As far as I can remember, he was a retired soldier and friend of the family. It was a
very nice touch.

Since then, every eulogy I have heard has been delivered inside the church, at
the end of the funeral service. This has been going on for years and I have heard
dozens of them during my lifetime, so I expected the same to happen when my
mother-in-law died recently.

Her son was going to deliver it, but I was taken aback when I learned that he
wouldn’t be allowed to deliver it in the church. He was advised he would have to do
it elsewhere.
The Catholic Church does not want eulogies delivered in the church anymore and
while this was news to me, it’s a decision that was taken a long time ago. The
Vatican made it clear as far back as 1989 when it stated that “a brief homily based
on the readings should always be given at the funeral liturgy, but never any kind of
eulogy.”
Pope John Paul II repeated that in 2000 and stated: “At the Funeral Mass there
should, as a rule, be a short homily, but never a eulogy of any kind.” The reason the
Catholic Church doesn’t permit eulogies is because the focus of the Catholic Funeral
Mass is not supposed to be about the life of the deceased, but about the saving
mercy of God that brings the deceased into eternal life.

That seems to be clear enough and when you join any club, you must play by their
rules. But as far as I can see, eulogies are still delivered in some places, so while
they are officially ‘discouraged’, if the family insist on a eulogy, they might not be
stopped.