DEAR EDITOR:

The Diocese of Youngstown’s (Bishop Bonnar’s) new ban on funeral visitations inside church buildings, effective Dec. 1, 2025, is being sold as a matter of “decorum” and respect for sacred space. I was raised Catholic, and went to Catholic school from kindergarten through college. In all that time, I never saw a policy that so neatly drains the humanity out of one of life’s most vulnerable and sacred moments.

For years, local Catholics have gathered in their own parishes to grieve, pray and say goodbye. Now Bishop Bonnar has decided that this long-standing pastoral practice is suddenly “unfit” for church property. Apparently expressing profound grief, and comforting the bereaved has become too messy, too inconvenient. Not quite liturgically tidy enough.

The diocese’s own announcement notes they “consulted” funeral directors. Maybe that’s routine. Maybe it’s not. But when a decision conveniently nudges families toward for-profit funeral homes, the question practically asks itself. You don’t need to be a conspiracy theorist to notice who stands to benefit.

Even in death, the statement “follow the money” applies.

And this arrives at a moment when diocesan trust is already threadbare, mostly notably because of the abuse scandal now unfolding at Ursuline High School. You would think this would be a time for compassion, humility and pastoral sensitivity by Bishop Bonner, specifically. Instead, we get a bureaucratic clampdown (on death!) delivered in church-speak.

What’s being lost here isn’t simply a location for calling hours. It’s the Church’s credibility as a place where human grief is met with human care. This decree treats grief and mourning as a management problem rather than a dark and sacred moment in a family’s life.

As someone formed by Catholic education and who still respects the faith’s highest ideals, I find this decision deeply disturbing. The diocese likes to talk about walking with the people of God. It would be astonishing if that showed up anywhere beyond their press releases.

JOHN SHARTLE

Canfield