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Catholic funeral service at St Mary Immaculate Church, Charing Cross. A Catholic funeral is carried out in accordance with the prescribed rites of the Catholic Church.Such funerals are referred to in Catholic canon law as "ecclesiastical funerals" and are dealt with in canons 1176–1185 of the 1983 Code of Canon Law, [1] and in canons 874–879 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. [2]
The last rites, also known as the Commendation of the Dying, are the last prayers and ministrations given to an individual of Christian faith, when possible, shortly before death. [1] The Commendation of the Dying is practiced in liturgical Christian denominations, such as the Roman Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church. [2]
Devotees praying to Santa Muerte in Mexico. Santa Muerte can be translated into English as either "Saint Death" or "Holy Death", although R. Andrew Chesnut, Ph.D. in Latin American history and professor of Religious studies, believes that the former is a more accurate translation because it "better reveals" her identity as a folk saint.
Purgatory pre-dates the specific Catholic tradition of purgatory as a transitional state or condition; it has a history that dates back before Christ, to related beliefs also in Judaism, that prayer for the dead contributes to their afterlife purification.
Russian Orthodox icon of The Good Thief in Paradise (Moscow School, c. 1560). A deathbed conversion is the adoption of a particular religious faith shortly before dying. Making a conversion on one's deathbed may reflect an immediate change of belief, a desire to formalize longer-term beliefs, or a desire to complete a process of conversion already underway.
The 1909 Catholic Encyclopedia states "The eschatological summary which speaks of the 'four last things' (death, judgment, heaven, and hell) is popular rather than scientific. For systematic treatment it is best to distinguish between (A) individual and (B) universal and cosmic eschatology, including under (A): (1) death; (2) the particular ...
The orthodox Christian belief about the intermediate state between death and the Last Judgment is immortality of the soul followed immediately after death of the body by particular judgment. [185] In Catholicism some souls temporarily stay in Purgatory to be purified for Heaven (as described in the Catechism of the Catholic Church, 1030–1032).
There are also slightly different ceremonies of the Mass and slightly different texts. When the deceased is a baptised child under the age of reason the priest wears white vestments as a symbol of the innocence of the deceased and the attendant belief that the child will immediately be received into heaven without the need to endure purgatory.