I once attended a funeral of someone who was immolated alive in an awful car crash. He was young and talented, just out of college. His family had immigrated from a Caribbean nation. The large church was packed with mourners. And they *mourned*. The parish's priests were all in attendance, if memory serves. The principal celebrant tended to his pastoral and liturgical responsibilities with care. He gave a fine homily; he knew the family and the deceased.

After communion came remembrances. The first, from a younger sister of the deceased. The deceased had pushed her out of the car before it went ablaze, saving her life. She was deeply injured in body and spirit in the accident. She hobbled with the assistance of others up to give her remembrance. It was primal. Initially, I wondered if this opportunity would be a grace to her and everyone else. My doubts were overcome. It was painful to be present to, but necessary. There was another remembrance, by a cousin. Less primal, more usual. But then, just as the principal celebrant was about to resume the rest of the liturgy, up walked an aunt in white mourning, walking with great purpose. Celebrant sat down. Aunt began to preach in beautiful French with a passion and purpose rarely seen in Catholic pulpits in these parts (I don't speak French, but I was able to grasp some of what was being said, but I have to say it was her manner and effect that was mesmerizing; it was not an evangelical preacher style, but something magisterial). She spoke something that appeared necessary to all. One could feel the room absorbed in it. It could not have had the same effect in a funeral home or hall; this space had nearly 1000 people in it, and the spaciousness and moment was of a piece with the address.

While it does not appear the OP's situation was this, my experience that day always reminds me: there is much wisdom in our rules, but they are not the only wisdom.

This is a difficult situation. Non-Catholics who are not versed in Catholic funerals, especially family and close friends, want to incorporate their own particular rituals or ideas into the Catholic liturgy. My best experience has been a sharing time after the rosary is said on the evening before the funeral mass, or morning of , then mass can be left intact.

Eulogies, no matter how well intended, are out of place at Mass. I don't say this because I can cite some rule, but because of an essential point which is lost nowadays, but at which Noel has hinted.

The purpose of the Requiem is to pray for the repose of the soul of the deceased. Therefore, a most appropriate "talk" would list all the reasons one needed to pray for him, but it should take place before the Mass, not during. The purpose of other events is to remember individualistically the deceased, to keep that memory alive in our hearts.

Giving a long list of personal remembrances at Mass, usually extolling some great virtue of the deceased, or trying to be funny, has the effect of lessening our awareness of the need to pray for the deceased instead of to the deceased; additionally, while humor is clearly a proper part of a Catholic's life, humor at Mass can have the effect of lessening the gravity of the situation.

While you may have given up, there are those who continue to strive to be influential on this forum, but more importantly, out in real life. Your pastor, whom I have worked for, would be open to consider this and would quite possibly welcome this, as he is a holy man with good intentions.

Let's not even talk preferences, let's talk rubrics:

GIRM 382: "At the Funeral Mass there should, as a rule, be a short homily, but never a eulogy of any kind."

Problem solved. No eulogy "of any kind." Pretty clear to me.

Problem solved. No eulogy "of any kind." Pretty clear to me.

I agree, but I don't run the show.

I don't know what kind of Funeral Directors you've dealt with. But in my experience they tend to try to force the priest and parish staff to do whatever the family wants, whether it is allowed or not -- this is especially problematic when parishes have been closed or merged and they come back with "Well, Father X. let us do it at my Father's funeral at St. Whatsit's".

My now-retired pastor actually received an disgusting piece of hate mail because of not allowing eulogies, even though "Fr. X. let [us] do it at my Father's funeral at St. Y's."

Good luck.

In other Discussions the Church is unfeeling for asking family members to choose readings and music. In this discussion the Church is unfeeling for preventing family members from eulogising. Yet in both cases the Church has the authority to moderate the liturgy, and one might ask why She did what She did for these two points, and further, why must we always try to perturb the liturgy?

People can feel their feelings, but why the compunction to force them on others in an aimless lecture style with mechanical assistance? Too bad this Wake activity got pushed into the Vigil and the Mass. The old way meant the event had food to distract and drink to deaden the awkward experience.

Dr. Mahrt,

Do you know the basis on which "some parishes have specific provision"? Is it something each parish takes upon itself because it wants to find a way around the blanket ban on eulogies during Mass? Or, is it written into the GIRM somehow? Or....I don't know.

Let's not even talk preferences, let's talk rubrics:

But better than rubrics, let's talk the tradition of the Church.

Eulogies were and still are allowed under the old rite with the permission of the ordinary. They took place after the Mass and before the absolution.

The new rite forbids eulogies, presumably on the reasoning that it is better considered in the abstract, for the priest to preach the Gospel to his hearers than to eulogize the dead. As part of SC integration of preaching into the Mass itself, it also places this homily during the Requiem liturgy itself. I find this to be good in theory.

But in reality, we get a half-eulogy/half-homily that tends to eulogize/canonize the dead person within the Mass. And the homily/eulogy combination tends to lend itself to the praise of the dead in a somewhat unfortunate way (making them, e.g. the sermon illustration of various virtues). Better to have the eulogy, but make it stand outside the Mass, I think then to not have the eulogy, but in reality have it and within the Mass at that.

I think there's a recognition of a human need in having a eulogy at the funeral rites and that the old rite found a way to balance that human need against other concerns.

A eulogy? All the books I have refer to sermons after the Last Gospel (point of debate in 1962, but anyways) and before the absolution.

One parish where I sub in allows a eulogy (only one speaker) to be given...prior to the start of Mass..and then after the eulogy there is some silence (typically while the casket is moved from the front (where it has been for the pre-Mass visitation) to the back and then the cantor directs the congregation to turn towards the back where the priest will have the family place the pall over the casket - and the rite begins in the back...followed by the opening hymn...so the eulogy is kept outside the Mass but is still given and I think this a nice compromise (and the parish really encourages the eulogist to write and plan the eulogy and will help draft as well so I've never seen it run long or drift into long storytelling).

I'm not sure why people keep bringing up "rules." I agree that we will not be saved by them, but in this case, they are beside the point. My diocese has very clear "rules" about eulogies, calling them "Remarks" and saying that they should be done by a single person and "should place emphasis on how God has been seen acting in the life and in the death of the deceased." Not surprisingly they are honored more in the breach than the observance. I have heard respectful eulogies and ones that were wildly out of place; some reflected Catholic doctrine; others did not. On rare occasions I have heard deeply moving and even deeply theological eulogies.

But again, this is beside the point. A Catholic funeral mass is not a memorial mass. Its purpose is to pray for the dead, not remember the the living (at least in a human way). The net effect is to preempt what is really happening at the liturgy and reinforce the mistaken notion that the liturgy is basically a human activity done for human purposes. (How often have you heard a eulogy open with the words "We have come here to celebrate the life of _____"? Remembering and celebrating this is obviously a good and necessary thing, but is this the reason for the mass?)

I don't necessarily fault any pastor that allows eulogies (they are not against the rules, as Liam has noted) and do not envy any pastor who has the burden of trying to move things in the right direction. But the funeral mass has taken on so much baggage that I for one see the need to reassert its primary purpose.

I know I've posted this before (somewhere). It's appalling, from the BBC, 2014. But they surely can't mean church funerals, could they?
"Monty Python's Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life has become the most popular tune to play at a UK funeral.
A study by a chain of funeral directors found the 1979 Life of Brian song had overtaken Frank Sinatra's My Way as the preferred choice of music."
http://www.bbc.com/news/entertainment-arts-30143250