Burial In Veterans’ Cemetery

A reader writes:

I was born Catholic many years ago and remain faithfully practicing. I am a WW2 veteran – USCG. What is the correct thinking about burial in a county veterans cemetery? (unhallowed ground?)

I find my self reading your blog again and again. Thank you for it.

Thank you, sir! Always glad to have a member of the Greatest Generation reading! Y’all did a huge service for the world! One of my grandfathers was also in the Coast Guard in WWII, down in the Gulf of Mexico where Nazi subs were prowling.

I hope it’s a lot of years yet before you need to make use of this info, but it is permitted for you to be buried in a veterans’ cermetery. The Code of Canon Law provides that:

Canon  1240

§1. Where possible, the Church is to have its own cemeteries or at least areas in civil cemeteries that are designated for the deceased members of the faithful and properly blessed.

§2. If this cannot be achieved, however, then individual graves are to be properly blessed.

So: The veterans’ cemetery you’re thinking about may already have a section that has been set aside and blessed for Catholics, or your own grave could be blessed (before or after the interment, according to my understanding).

Like I said, though: Here’s hoping it a long time before that’s necessary. I’ll say a prayer to that end and encourage others to do so as well.

Hope you’ll keep visiting the blog!

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Author: Jimmy Akin

Jimmy was born in Texas, grew up nominally Protestant, but at age 20 experienced a profound conversion to Christ. Planning on becoming a Protestant seminary professor, he started an intensive study of the Bible. But the more he immersed himself in Scripture the more he found to support the Catholic faith, and in 1992 he entered the Catholic Church. His conversion story, "A Triumph and a Tragedy," is published in Surprised by Truth. Besides being an author, Jimmy is the Senior Apologist at Catholic Answers, a contributing editor to Catholic Answers Magazine, and a weekly guest on "Catholic Answers Live."

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