God Squad: A priest's first duty is to his own parish

I work for a nonsectarian cemetery, and we have families requesting clergy to preside over funeral services all the time. As a courtesy, we used to keep a directory of clergy on hand for out-of-town families to call. The roster covered multiple faiths and denominations. Some time ago, we had to stop recommending clergy. When families called asking for a minister or priest, we began recommending that they call a local church. Then, we found out the churches didn't appreciate this and turned families away, saying, "We don't do that," or "Tell the cemetery to stop recommending this church." If a Catholic priest's vocation is to serve the community and attend to the sick and dying, why aren't they obligated to attend to the already deceased? Shouldn't they be willing to bless the grave and give a proper send-off to their Catholic brethren? Does it have to do with a person's final resting place (a Catholic or nonsectarian cemetery)? If so, in my opinion, that's very un-Christian.

- Anonymous

 Your painful question raises two important but related issues.

The first issue involves what a clergyperson owes to the general community. This matter is often raised in reader letters. Issue No. 2, often overlooked by readers but not by clergy, involves what people owe to the local clergy.

Let's begin with the obligations of Catholic priests. A priest is obligated by sacred vows to serve the Catholic families in his parish. A parish is a geographically defined area, and the families in the parish are those who register with the parish church (although even those who don't register are technically members of the parish). If a Catholic family from outside the parish wants a priest to officiate at a funeral, most priests will try to help if they can.

However, they're not obligated to do so, and what often happens is that priests whose parishes are close to large Catholic cemeteries are called upon quite often to minister to the needs of out-of-town families. This is an unfair but unavoidable burden for them. With the severe shortage of Catholic priests, it's completely understandable that sometimes there's simply no priest available for this above-and-beyond-the-call-of-duty service. Your anger toward them because of this is, in my view, inappropriate and misplaced.

As far as ministers and rabbis are concerned, the parish system does not apply. These are Congregationalist houses of worship, and their clergy are responsible only for the families who choose to affiliate with the particular church or synagogue. However, even there, most clergy will try to help out if they have time. A fee is generally charged for such officiating.

Sometimes, a helpful sharing of religious responsibilities occurs when a funeral service is conducted out of town and a local clergy person is asked to officiate only during the burial service at the cemetery.

The second issue is one that's important to clergy and ought to be important to all religious people: The shocking arrogance of people who do nothing to support their local houses of worship, yet expect the clergy to be available to them for rites of passage like funerals.

There's no shame in not supporting your local church or synagogue if you're not religious and don't plan to ever avail yourself of its services, comfort and prayers. However, if you do expect to need such services in the future, the time to extend your support is now. I don't like houses of worship being thought of as fee-for-service institutions. However, churches do need to pay their bills, and for people to be "free riders" is morally indefensible and spiritually limited.

We are all trying to create communities of the faithful, not supermarkets for the occasionally needy. There's an enormous difference between having a priest, minister or rabbi who knew your deceased relative sit with you and help you and your family heal your broken hearts versus having some "pick up" clergy person on hand who never met the deceased try to figure out what to say and what to do at the funeral.

The many clergy I know and admire of every faith do so much for people who often do so little for them and for their religious institutions.