May we keep the ashes at home, divide them, or scatter them?
What the Church holds
Current norm The ordinary rule is that ashes are kept in a sacred place, not scattered or made into jewellery. The 2016 instruction permits keeping ashes at home only in grave and exceptional cases with the competent permission; it rejects ordinary division among family members (Ad resurgendum cum Christo, nn. 5–7).
Read that instruction together with the DDF’s clarification of 9 December 2023. It permits ecclesiastical authority to evaluate a family’s request to preserve a minimal portion in a place significant to the deceased’s history, subject to its stated conditions, including the keeping of the ashes in a sacred place. It also permits a defined, permanent sacred place for commingled ashes of deceased baptized persons, with their identities recorded. Neither provision is a general licence to scatter ashes or divide them privately.
Cremation itself is allowed unless chosen for reasons contrary to Christian doctrine (can. 1176 §3). The point of a sacred resting place is reverence for the body and continued remembrance and prayer. Consult the parish and the competent ecclesiastical authority about any proposed exception.