page_title: Catholic funeral
section_title: Conveyance to the church
hierarchical_section_title: Catholic funeral / Funeral rites / Conveyance to the church
caption_attribution_description: English: Archbishop Hughes, prepared for burial
context_page_description: A Catholic funeral is carried out in accordance with the prescribed rites of the Catholic Church. Such funerals are referred to in Catholic canon law as "ecclesiastical funerals" and are dealt with in canons 1176–1185 of the Code of Canon Law, and in canons 874–879 of the Code of Canons of the Eastern Churches. In Catholic funerals, the Church "seeks spiritual support for the deceased, honors their bodies, and at the same time brings the solace of hope to the living." The Second Vatican Council in its Constitution on the Liturgy decreed: "The rite for the burial of the dead should express more clearly the paschal character of Christian death, and should correspond more closely to the circumstances and traditions found in various regions."
context_section_description: The Rite of Funerals for the United States acknowledges that funeral processions from home to church and church to cemetery "do not ordinarily take place in this country." Hymns from these ceremonies may, therefore, be incorporated in the liturgy of the Mass. 
  Where such processions do take place, one tradition is reflected in the following. The parish priest and other clergy go to the house of the deceased with cross and holy water. Before the coffin is removed from the house it is sprinkled with the holy water. The priest, with his assistants, says the psalm De profundis with the antiphon Si iniquitates. Then the procession sets out for the church. The cross-bearer goes first, followed by members of the clergy carrying lighted candles. The priest walks immediately before the coffin, and the friends of the deceased and others walk behind it.
  As they leave the house, the priest intones the antiphon Exsultabunt Domino, and then the psalm Miserere is recited or chanted in alternate verses by the cantors and clergy. On reaching the church the antiphon Exsultabunt is repeated.  As the body is placed "in the middle of the church", the responsorial Subvenite is recited.
  Historical precedents provide that, if the corpse is a layman, the feet are to be turned towards the altar.  If the corpse is a priest, then the position is reversed, the head being towards the altar. The earliest reference to this is in Johann Burchard's "Diary". Burchard was the master of ceremonies to Pope Innocent VIII and Pope Alexander VI. The idea seems to be that the bishop (or priest) in death should occupy the same position in the church as during life, facing his people who he taught and blessed in Christ's name.
  According to another tradition not now considered obligatory in the Roman Rite, the feet of all Christians both before the altar and in the grave should be pointed to the East. This custom is alluded to by Bishop Hildebert at the beginning of the 12th century, and its symbolism is discussed by Guillaume Durand. "A man ought so to be buried", he says, "that while his head lies to the West his feet are turned to the East..."
caption: Archbishop John Hughes prepared for burial, St. Patrick's Old Cathedral, New York, 1864.
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