# Funeral Ritual certification



## GKA (Aug 2, 2015)

A few years back we lost a dear brother who had led a troubled life after his return from operation Desert Storm.
He was Catholic and his parish, or church was not supportive of his Masonic status and as such, refused to provide last rites.
A lodge brother was certified to provide those Catholic services per California law and the fraternity came through to give our brother the respect that was his due.
I was so moved by this that I became ordained last year and today I completed my Masonic Funeral certification.
The Funeral service is one of the most beautiful of all the Masonic rituals and I discovered even deeper meaning to much that I had learned as a Master Mason, I highly recommend that everyone get certified to perform this critical service.
I have received so much as a Freemason, now I can give something back.


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 2, 2015)

Not all jurisdictions require one to be certified to do the funeral service.


----------



## LAMason (Aug 2, 2015)

I am not an expert on the Catholic Church, but I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA) and Adult Confirmation, and was a practicing Catholic for a short time.  



GKA said:


> ...He was Catholic and his parish, or church was not supportive of his Masonic status and as such, refused to provide last rites. A lodge brother was certified to provide those Catholic services per California law...



Only a Priest can perform the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites).  I am not sure if your are referring to California Masonic Code or the State of California Laws and Regulations, but neither can regulate or supersede the religious rites of a Church.  

If you meant the Lodge Brother performed a Masonic Funeral Service, while it certainly is a beautiful service (I have been to many in Louisiana) it is not the same thing as the "Last Rites" or "Catholic Funeral Rites".



GKA said:


> I was so moved by this that I became ordained last year and today I completed my Masonic Funeral certification.



Do you have to be an ordained minister to perform the Masonic Funeral Service in California?


----------



## Pscyclepath (Aug 2, 2015)

Arkansas is one of those places which does not require certification to perform a funeral, though some denominations may require a licensed minister to perform the actual funeral rites.

Congrats to Brother GKA on his achievement...  One of the things on my Eastern agenda next year is to get one of more experienced brothers to conduct a lodge school for funerals; right now we only have one or two guys who regularly do these, and they're getting a bit ancient.


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 2, 2015)

Pscyclepath said:


> Arkansas is one of those places which does not require certification to perform a funeral, though some denominations may require a licensed minister to perform the actual funeral rites.
> 
> Congrats to Brother GKA on his achievement...  One of the things on my Eastern agenda next year is to get one of more experienced brothers to conduct a lodge school for funerals; right now we only have one or two guys who regularly do these, and they're getting a bit ancient.


I am, as some are aware, LDS. I had the honor (and I don't mean that lightly) to perform a Masonic funeral in a Congregational church with a Presbyterian interim pastor.


----------



## GKA (Aug 2, 2015)

LAMason said:


> I am not an expert on the Catholic Church, but I went through the Rite of Christian Initiation (RCIA) and Adult Confirmation, and was a practicing Catholic for a short time.
> 
> 
> 
> ...


The Brother who came to the call was an ordained Catholic priest


----------



## LAMason (Aug 3, 2015)

You originally said:



GKA said:


> He was Catholic and his parish, or church was not supportive of his Masonic status and as such, refused to provide last rites.





GKA said:


> A lodge brother was certified to provide those Catholic services per California law



Now you say:



GKA said:


> The Brother who came to the call was an ordained Catholic priest



If he was an "ordained Catholic Priest", then "those Catholic services" were in fact provided by the Church.

Exactly what "Catholic services" are you referring to?


----------



## GKA (Aug 3, 2015)

The deceased brothers church refused to provide the funeral service
One of our brothers is a Catholic priest 
In California Grand Lodge requires that the master of masonic funeral service be certified


----------



## LAMason (Aug 3, 2015)

So why did you say:



GKA said:


> A lodge brother *was certified to provide those Catholic services per California law*



instead of saying to begin with that he was a Catholic Priest?

And again, what "Catholic services" did he provide?

A Masonic Funeral Service is not a "Catholic service".


----------



## LAMason (Aug 3, 2015)

GKA said:


> One of our brothers is a Catholic priest



Is/was he in good standing as a Priest with the Catholic Church?


----------



## dfreybur (Aug 3, 2015)

GKA said:


> In California Grand Lodge requires that the master of masonic funeral service be certified



When was that certificate added?  Back when I qualified in 1998 to be elected to serve in 1999 the requirement was to be able to read the words with dignity.  That's very different from being certified which means having it memorized.


----------



## GKA (Aug 3, 2015)

That requirement remains the same, still no need to memorize


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 3, 2015)

http://www.calodges.org/no551/Funeral_Service.pdf

It also includes emotional stability???


----------



## John Schnitz (Aug 3, 2015)

My wife has been bugging me about RCIA classes. She want me to go through it with her. All she need to do is to to be confirmed. She want to got through it cause it has been so long. So I'm being ask to attend with her.


----------



## LAMason (Aug 4, 2015)

John Schnitz said:


> My wife has been bugging me about RCIA classes. She want me to go through it with her. All she need to do is to to be confirmed. She want to got through it cause it has been so long. So I'm being ask to attend with her.



I will not offer you advice as to what you should do, but will tell you why I joined the Catholic Church and why I left.

Where I grew up, spent my early adulthood, and joined the Lodge there were very few Catholics.  I never heard anything discussed about Catholicism and had no idea that the Catholic Church objected to its members becoming Freemasons.  I moved to a town that had a lot of Catholics.  Due to the school situation I enrolled my children in a Catholic school (we were and had always been Baptist), as a result of that my children wanted to join the Catholic Church because that is where their friends went to Church and were involved in youth programs.  So, my wife and I decided to make the change and have the entire family attending the same Church.

We went through RCIA and were confirmed.  During this time I never heard anything said about Freemasonry (I did not join a local Lodge at that time) from anyone in the Church and it never crossed my mind to inform the Priest that I was a Freemason and so there never was an issue.  Too cut to the chase, after the internet became available, I found out about the Catholic Church’s policy about Freemasonry:

“Therefore the Church's negative judgment in regard to Masonic associations remains unchanged since their principles have always been considered irreconcilable with the doctrine of the Church and therefore membership in them remains forbidden. The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.” (DECLARATION ON MASONIC ASSOCIATIONS, Issued by the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on November 26, 1983.) http://www.cin.org/vatcong/masonas.html

I could not in good conscience continue taking Communion, not because I had anything against the Catholic Church, but because I would have been doing something against the Church teachings.  I never said anything to anyone, but I stopped being a practicing Catholic and after my children became adults my wife and I went back to the Baptist Church.

In June, 2013 a Catholic Priest in France was suspended and barred from public ministry after he was exposed as an active Freemason.  http://www.catholicnewsagency.com/news/french-priest-suspended-after-freemasonry-revealed/, which is why I a skeptical of the claim in the OP that a member of the Lodge who is a Catholic Priest provided “Catholic services” for the deceased Brother.


----------



## GKA (Aug 4, 2015)

Contact the lodge and find out for yourself, they will tell you
I am finish dealing with your pedantic rhetoric


----------



## pointwithinacircle2 (Aug 4, 2015)

When I went through RCIA I told the priest that I was a Freemason and asked if that was a problem.  His reply was "So, you lay bricks?".  He had never heard of Freemasonry.  Apparently it is not a big issue everywhere.


----------



## LAMason (Aug 4, 2015)

pointwithinacircle2 said:


> When I went through RCIA I told the priest that I was a Freemason and asked if that was a problem.  His reply was "So, you lay bricks?".  He had never heard of Freemasonry.  Apparently it is not a big issue everywhere.



None the less, the Catholic Church referenced statement says "...It is not within the competence of local ecclesiastical authorities to give a judgment on the nature of Masonic associations which would imply a derogation from..." the policy that "...The faithful who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion...." (http://www.cin.org/vatcong/masonas.html), so I find it hard to believe that the Catholic Church would allow someone they consider to be "in a state of grave sin" and unable to "receive Holy Communion" to continue to act as a Priest, conduct ecclesiastical funerals, and perform the Sacrament of the Anointing of the Sick (Last Rites).

That does not mean that I do not believe that there are Catholics and possibly even former Priests that are Freemasons, I just do not believe that the Catholic Church would allow an active Priest to be an active Freemason, and even though a member may be a former Priest they do not have the authority to act on behalf of the Catholic Church.


----------



## GKA (Aug 5, 2015)

Since the Church refused to provide the services, it is obvious to me that they never sanctions the catholic brothers actions, none the last a service which imitated a catholic one, to try and be specific, did occur and in association with it, a masonic one occurred as well.
I hope this clarify this, this was not about the details of the event, it was about how a brother stepped up to the plate to honor another brother. That is what this post was about.


----------



## hanzosbm (Aug 5, 2015)

GKA said:


> That requirement remains the same, still no need to memorize


Wow, this is quite interesting to me.  I've never witnessed ANY ritual being performed by anything other than memorization.  To be honest, it saddens me a little.

On a personal note, observing the funeral ritual after my grandfather passed away is what made me want to become a Mason.  I haven't yet started the work for it, but I would very much like to.


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 5, 2015)

hanzosbm said:


> Wow, this is quite interesting to me.  I've never witnessed ANY ritual being performed by anything other than memorization.  To be honest, it saddens me a little.
> 
> On a personal note, observing the funeral ritual after my grandfather passed away is what made me want to become a Mason.  I haven't yet started the work for it, but I would very much like to.


Any number of lodges and haute grades perform it from the written word. If the end goal is to communicate the meaning of the ritual, one can argue that it doesn't matter, other than managing a book during a floor work or, as in a Free Gardeners meeting last night, it is a reallllllly wee book.  

 It is strange to me, though, that one has to be certified as being able to read.  Maybe it's a Californian thing.  .


----------



## GKA (Aug 5, 2015)

The district inspector, who provided the instruction told us that we should use a book, it makes it more significant to the family


----------



## GKA (Aug 5, 2015)

Glen Cook said:


> Any number of lodges and haute grades perform it from the written word. If the end goal is to communicate the meaning of the ritual, one can argue that it doesn't matter, other than managing a book during a floor work or, as in a Free Gardeners meeting last night, it is a reallllllly wee book.
> 
> It is strange to me, though, that one has to be certified as being able to read.  Maybe it's a Californian thing.  .


Brothers got some teeth


----------



## hanzosbm (Aug 5, 2015)

GKA said:


> The district inspector, who provided the instruction told us that we should use a book, it makes it more significant to the family


Interesting.  Can you expand on this a bit?  I'm not trying to argue, but I would think it would be more significant seeing that the brothers went through the effort of memorizing rather than just reading it from a book.


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 5, 2015)

hanzosbm said:


> Interesting.  Can you expand on this a bit?  I'm not trying to argue, but I would think it would be more significant seeing that the brothers went through the effort of memorizing rather than just reading it from a book.


Unless they are part of the Masonic family, many people don't really know that it is memorized--until it is done poorly. Given the importance of the public ceremony and the duty owed, I would rather see it delivered well by reading, than stumbled through. It can be difficult to do, as it may well not be in the usual environment in which we deliver our ritual, i.e., a church or cemetery.


----------



## hanzosbm (Aug 5, 2015)

Okay, I can respect that.  So if I'm understanding correctly, the thought is that it's better to read it clearly from a book than do a poor job from memorization?


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 5, 2015)

hanzosbm said:


> Okay, I can respect that.  So if I'm understanding correctly, the thought is that it's better to read it clearly from a book than do a poor job from memorization?


Oh, yeah.  It is cringe worthy.  An exception n my jurisdiction: if you do it for a PGM, it better be memorized.


----------



## hanzosbm (Aug 5, 2015)

Although I'll be affiliating with a lodge here in California, I haven't observed any of their ritual work.  That being said, in Kentucky, the WM does almost the entirety of the 3 degrees.  In my opinion, it really ought to be broken up more to make it more manageable.  I've never been WM, but I can just imagine at my installation being told "Congrats!  By the way, you'll need to memorize these 150 pages.  Better do it soon too, we've got some degrees next week."


----------



## Glen Cook (Aug 5, 2015)

hanzosbm said:


> Although I'll be affiliating with a lodge here in California, I haven't observed any of their ritual work.  That being said, in Kentucky, the WM does almost the entirety of the 3 degrees.  In my opinion, it really ought to be broken up more to make it more manageable.  I've never been WM, but I can just imagine at my installation being told "Congrats!  By the way, you'll need to memorize these 150 pages.  Better do it soon too, we've got some degrees next week."


Ah, that's the benefit of certification requirements for a master.  It is also why in some of the higher degrees it is memorized.  The high degrees of the Rectified Rite are the longest presiding officer pieces I've ever seen.  We even break it up for reading.  I know of no jurisdiction which does it from memory.


----------

