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Believers who choose to have their ashes scattered after being cremated are entitled to a Christian funeral, the Vatican said yesterday.

The ruling follows the refusal of a parish priest in the Italian Alps to hold a funeral for a local man who had asked to have his remains spread in the mountains. Father Carmelo Pellicone, of the parish of St Etienne in Aosta, told the man’s widow that a religious funeral was impossible because it was against the dogma of the resurrection of the body.

He said that scattering ashes in the countryside or at sea was a “pantheistic communion with nature in death, which is not part of our religion” – a belief held by many priests. Bishop Luciano Pacomio, head of doctrine at the Italian Bishops Conference, said, however, that this reflected an out-of-date mentality.

Father Silvano Sirboni, a noted liturgist, said that although the Church preferred burial, cremation was acceptable in certain circumstances. Writing in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire he pointed out that the Italian bishops had issued new funeral rites in November which, for the first time, included specific prayers in the presence of ashes rather than a body, and even prayers to be read at a crematorium.

Avvenire said this innovation had passed unnoticed until the Val d’Aosta incident, which was given national coverage. The Diocese of Aosta said in a statement that although Father Pellicone had “hesitated”, he had in the end given the man who wanted his ashes scattered in the mountains a Catholic funeral.

It said: “Church funerals will be celebrated for all the faithful, including those who have chosen the scattering of their ashes, as long as the choice was not made for reasons contrary to the Christian faith.” Catholic funerals should still be denied to those motivated by “a pantheistic or naturalistic mentality”.

Cremation was forbidden in the Church for centuries because of the belief that the body is “the temple of the Holy Spirit” and that Christians will be bodily resurrected.

The Second Vatican Council in the 1960s lifted the ban, provided the body was present during the funeral and cremated afterwards.

Church rules were relaxed further in 1997 when the Vatican agreed that cremated remains could be brought into church for the liturgical rites of burial. In Italy, though, many priests still prefer to conduct funeral rites with the body present and some – as in the Val d’Aosta case – remain opposed to cremation altogether on the grounds that it is pagan.

Until 2001 the Italian state allowed cremation but prohibited the scattering of ashes. Partly because cemeteries are becoming overcrowded the number of cremations in Italy has risen, from 5,000 in 1990 to 53,000 in 2006. Giovanni Pollini, spokesman for the Italian federation of crematoriums, said resistance was strong in the south, with only 166 cremations in Sicily in 2006, 280 in Apulia and just over 200 in Campania.

Father Sirboni said cremation was an ancient practice around the world but Christians had wished traditionally to be buried in the ground “as Jesus was”. Cremation was introduced in Italy under Napoleonic rule “for hygienic reasons” but opposed by the Pope. Consequently, it had come to be viewed as a sign of secular revolt against the Church, he said.

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