Nonno
08-20-2009, 12:53 PM
"When Kenneth Kistner, 85, died in February, his wife, Carmen, didn't call any clergy.
At the Detroit memorial service for the Marine veteran and retired educator, Kistner's family read a eulogy — one that Kistner himself approved years earlier, when it was drafted by a secular "celebrant" near their retirement home in Largo, Fla.
A growing number of people want to celebrate a loved one's life at a funeral or memorial service without clergy — sometimes even without God.
And that's giving rise to the new specialty of pastoral-style secular celebrants who deliver unique personalized eulogies without the rituals of institutional religion.
Not 'ushered into another world'
Eldon "Bud" Strawn, 79, who wrote the eulogy for Kistner, is one of four celebrants on call for four Anderson-McQueen Funeral & Cremation Centers in the St. Petersburg, Fla., area.
"What we've found in the past decade is that when you ask people whether they want a minister, people say, 'Not interested,' " says William McQueen, president of his family's longtime business.
"Today, of all the ceremonies we deal with, I'd say 50% are religious or clergy-led, 20% celebrant-led and 30% are having no ceremony or one led by family," says McQueen, who becomes president of the Cremation Association of North America at the group's annual meeting this week in Denver."
More at: More forgo clergy-led funerals for those by secular 'celebrants' - USATODAY.com (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-08-19-non-religious-funerals_N.htm)
At the Detroit memorial service for the Marine veteran and retired educator, Kistner's family read a eulogy — one that Kistner himself approved years earlier, when it was drafted by a secular "celebrant" near their retirement home in Largo, Fla.
A growing number of people want to celebrate a loved one's life at a funeral or memorial service without clergy — sometimes even without God.
And that's giving rise to the new specialty of pastoral-style secular celebrants who deliver unique personalized eulogies without the rituals of institutional religion.
Not 'ushered into another world'
Eldon "Bud" Strawn, 79, who wrote the eulogy for Kistner, is one of four celebrants on call for four Anderson-McQueen Funeral & Cremation Centers in the St. Petersburg, Fla., area.
"What we've found in the past decade is that when you ask people whether they want a minister, people say, 'Not interested,' " says William McQueen, president of his family's longtime business.
"Today, of all the ceremonies we deal with, I'd say 50% are religious or clergy-led, 20% celebrant-led and 30% are having no ceremony or one led by family," says McQueen, who becomes president of the Cremation Association of North America at the group's annual meeting this week in Denver."
More at: More forgo clergy-led funerals for those by secular 'celebrants' - USATODAY.com (http://www.usatoday.com/news/religion/2009-08-19-non-religious-funerals_N.htm)