Why was cremation forbidden to Catholics?
The prohibition finds its roots in Judaism s aversion to this practice. Pre-Christian Jews saw cremation as an attempt to annihilate Jewish existence and memory. Even though cremation was common for early Greeks and Romans, Christians avoided it because of resurrection faith, the body as a member of Christ and a temple of the Holy Spirit, and as a reaction to persecutors use of burning bodies as a taunt against belief in the resurrection.
