Human composting and alkaline hydrolysis do not satisfy the Catholic Church’s requirements for proper respect for the dead, the U.S. bishops said in a recent statement.

Los Angeles Auxiliary Bishop David G. O’Connell was committed to ‘the ordinary person, not the rich Catholic,’ said Linda Dakin-Grimm, an immigration attorney who worked with the bishop. His death is being investigated as a homicide.

Brother Mary Joseph lay in state at Mepkin Abbey, his simple funeral liturgy soon to begin, fitting for a man who lived a simple life at the South Carolina Trappist monastery.

When someone dies, it is only right that family and friends be given a chance to share their memories of their loved one. But the balance between pastoral care and logistical realities can be a tough one to strike.

When our superior told us that Jerry Huyett had died in Florida, I realized, in a way I never quite had before, a very basic thing; maybe the most basic thing of all: Life ends.

Father Michael Quealy, the first military chaplain killed in action in Vietnam, was honored on the day of his death in the Reading of the Names ceremony.