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The View/ABC
World News

Whoopi Goldberg criticises Vatican for banning scattering of ashes

by Antony Bushfield

Speaking on ABC's The View she said: "You can't dictate to people what is sacred".

The discussion was being held on American TV after the Vatican issued new guidance banning Catholics from having their ashes scattered, divvied up or kept at home.

The Church said cremation remains should instead be stored in a sacred, church-approved place.

Goldberg spoke about how her own mother had been cremated and her ashes were "all over the house".

Co-host Candace Cameron Blue also pitched in to the debate accusing the Vatican of making a decision that wasn't based on Biblical teaching.

She said: "This is the Catholics trying to keep the people connected to the Church. I think this is more ritualistic than it is connected to a Biblical principle."

An increasing number of Catholics are choosing cremation.

The new document from the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith was published to counter "new ideas contrary to the church's faith", the Church said.

Ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home, since that would deprive the Christian community as a whole from remembering the dead, the Vatican warned.

Rather, church authorities should designate a sacred place, such as a cemetery or church area, to hold them.

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