A RECTOR who moved cremated stays in a churchyard without first obtaining a college for exhumation has been ordered by the Consistory Court of the diocese of Portsmouth to pay the prices of preparing the court’s judgment.
The matter arose when a parishioner’s ashes were to be interred within the rector’s church’s graveyard in a plot that already contained the ashes of one other member of the family. A relative of the deceased visited the churchyard the day before the interment and identified to the assistant curate who was to conduct the interment service that the opening that had been prepared for the interment of the ashes was not in the right plot.
The curate consulted the rector, who advised that a hole ought to be dug in the right plot, and that was done. The next day the family were present when pre-interment prayers were said at the right plot, but they departed before the interment took place. The curate then placed the ashes, in a bag, in the opening that had been dug on the family’s instructions.
After the family had left, the verger insisted that the ashes must have been placed within the plot where a hole had originally been dug. The verger and the curate consulted the rector, who considered the matter and, having checked out the graveyard plan, concluded that a mistake had been made and that the ashes ought to be moved.
The ashes were then picked up from the plot where that they had been interred and poured from the bag into the opening that had been dug first. The family was then informed, they usually said that that was not the intended grave.
The rector and curate worked into the night, trying to find out whether a mistake had been made. The problem appeared to have stemmed from the graveyard plan, which divided the bottom into plots that may contain numerous independent interments of cremated stays. There had been confusion over which physical memorial items on the bottom related to which interment.
The day after the interment, the rector, without consulting the archdeacon or the diocesan registry, and without obtaining a college, dug up the ashes and reinterred them the identical day in the right plot, with the family present.
The family asked for a proof about what had happened, including a mirrored image by the rector on the teachings that had been learned. The rector wrote a protracted and detailed letter explaining the circumstances, apologising without reservation, and detailing how procedures can be reviewed to avoid a reoccurrence of the identical situation, including procuring a three-way agreement between the rector, verger, and family in regards to the location of graves before they were dug.
The family accepted the apology. The rector refunded the parish’s element within the statutory interment fee, and sought a confirmatory faculty for the exhumation of the ashes.
The diocesan Chancellor, the Worshipful John Summers, said that he was satisfied that the rector had made a real mistake in regards to the location for the interment of the ashes and had taken “all reasonable steps after the error got here to light to cope with the situation in an honest and pastorally sensitive manner”.
It was clear, nevertheless, the Chancellor said, that the rector must have obtained advice from the diocesan registry and in addition notified the archdeacon. It was a transparent principle of ecclesiastical law that Christian burial was everlasting, and exhumation was to be permitted by the Consistory Court only in exceptional circumstances. One such exceptional circumstance was when burial had, by mistake, been effected within the unsuitable place.
Had the rector consulted the registry for advice, the registry would have contacted the Chancellor to acquire an emergency faculty permitting the exhumation, which within the circumstances would have been granted.
Because the rector didn’t do this, his actions were illegal, and, had the petition not been regularised through his petition for a confirmatory faculty, he would have been exposed to serious sanctions.
The Chancellor “emphasised with the utmost clarity, that where incumbents face difficult legal situations regarding graveyards, they need to contact the registry for advice, including on an expedited, emergency basis in an appropriate case”.
The confirmatory faculty was granted, and the rector was ordered to pay the prices of preparing the court’s judgment.
