In the wake of All Souls Day this week, marking the commemoration of the dead, there is growing disagreement between the Italian state and the Roman Catholic Church over whether relatives of those who are cremated should be allowed to scatter their ashes.
In Turin the city council is preparing a new ordinance under which ashes may be scattered at several points along the River Po. Tom Deallesandri, the deputy mayor, said the riverside sites would be chosen "in a matter of weeks", probably beneath the Basilica of Superga at the confluence of the Po and Dora rivers.
La Stampa, the Turin paper, said this posed "no particular health problems". However Cardinal Severino Poletto, the Archbishop of Turin, said it was a dangerous step toward "individualism in prayer and faith." He objected that those who wished to remember the departed would have no memorial at which to pray....
Dr. Alan Cairns | 8/3/2009
