Manhattan's Ascension Church Holds Annual Communal Burial Mass

| 11/21/2023

By: Steven Schwankert

Catholic burial practices allow for cremation, cremated remains should be buried or placed in a niche after funerary rites are completed, not kept at home or scattered

Seventeen families said final goodbyes to loved ones on Saturday, November 18, as The Church of the Ascension held its annual communal burial Mass.

Church of the Ascension’s Pastor, Father Daniel S. Kearney, served as the principal celebrant of the mostly Spanish bilingual ceremony, assisted by Deacon Nelson Falcon. Many in attendance held photos of their deceased loved ones or wore pins with their picture.

Some of the deceased may have already received a Catholic funeral, but due to limited means, their families may have been unable to offer them a proper burial. The annual Mass at Ascension takes place in November, the month of All Souls.

Catholic burial practices allow for cremation, cremated remains should be buried or placed in a niche after funerary rites are completed, not kept at home or scattered. The Church of the Ascension’s annual Mass allows for the proper burial of such remains.

In 2017, as part of Cardinal Timothy Dolan’s Cardinal’s Initiative, a St. Joseph of Arimathea section was set aside in Gate of Heaven Cemetery, to allow for the “low-cost communal burial and memorialization of cremated remains.” Participants in the funeral rite were not charged any fees for Saturday’s burial. Although the space for cremated remains is shared, each individual buried there has their name inscribed on a memorial at the site.

Father Kearney began offering the annual Mass at the Manhattan Valley parish, also in 2017. “The first year we had 18. This is the biggest we’ve had since our first year, we had 17 today. We invite people who have lost a loved one in the past year or two, if they have the remains at home and they just have not been able to bury them for whatever reason, this is a good opportunity to do that.”

At the end of Mass, each family took their loved one’s remains and boarded a chartered bus that took them to Gate of Heaven Cemetery in Hawthorne, one of six operated by Calvary and Allied Cemeteries. Father Kearney accompanied the group to the cemetery.