Recent Transformations in Catholic Funeral Rituals in San Salvador de Jujuy and La Plata, Argentina

Abstract

This paper studies changes in Catholic funerary ceremonies and rituals by analyzing how they are performed and what transformations they present in current practice in relation to the recent past. The concept of change, from a semiotic perspective, is key to understanding these transformations, as is the concept of death—as an event—and its relationship with religion.

Active priests associated with the Roman Catholic Church in the cities of San Salvador de Jujuy and La Plata were interviewed in order to inquire into the possible changes that the Catholic Church perceives in funerary rituals and some of the causes it identifies. The interviews were recorded and later analyzed from the perspective of symbolic semiotics, making it possible to approach the Possible Semiotic Worlds of death and its transformations.

The research is guided by the following hypothesis: the modification of Catholic funerary rituals brings into play the sense of belonging and the strict meaning that Catholicism gives to death as a rite of passage, which religion perceives as a weakening of its structure, a weakening of faith, or a threat.

This work has made it possible to characterize the Catholic funerary ritual as a complex ritual, with different stages formally established by the rite of funerals: those linked to the farewell to the deceased and later stages, such as memorial masses. The changes identified, mainly in relation to the funerary ritual in its complexity, have to do with the suppression of some of these stages or stations prescribed by the Catholic religion: some have disappeared and others have been modified.

Although various factors are identified as giving rise to these changes, the common factor, according to the interviews, is cultural, linked to traditions different from the Catholic one and referring to particular geographic locations. It is in these situations that the Catholic Church develops a hybridization of funerary rituals, based on what this paper defines as adaptation, integration, and validation, mainly in Northwestern Argentina. The paper also addresses the issue of cremation, an aspect that appears as a major change that the Catholic Church has accepted in recent times, under certain conditions.