Pope Francis needs to modernise his view on death – traditional burials are a thing of the past

You’d think that the Pope might have more pressing issues to worry about – with the daily toll of human inhumanity filling our screens – images of starving children, displaced refugees and bomb-scarred villages where families are decimated and doctors are scarce.

But his Holiness has decided to issue a decree stating that if Catholics are cremated (mind you, the Vatican is pretty sniffy about cremation, claiming that burial shows more respect), their ashes must be buried in a cemetery or kept in a church.

The Pope needs to move with the times – the way people deal with death has moved a long way since we gathered around a tombstone in a graveyard and chucked earth on a wooden box. First, we replaced grim boxes with biodegradable coffins made of wicker or paper, then rewrote funerals, so that they became a celebration of someone’s life (this really took off during the Aids epidemic of the 1980s). We play their favourite music from punk to Sinatra and many people don’t wear black – all at the request of the deceased. This is a healthy positive step.

Some folks, such as David Bowie, don’t bother with a funeral at all, and are just cremated. They’re gone – cheerio – we must deal with it in our own way.

Now, in our age of mindfulness and alternative therapies and myriad religions, we still seem troubled by what actually happens to someone when they die, and even more bothered about what to do with their remains. No matter what the trappings of death are, the grief remains the same.

Last week, the singer Tom Jones said that since his wife died his life has ceased to have any meaning and he doesn’t think he can perform again. In spite of bereavement counselling, a relatively recent therapy, a huge number of people keep the ashes of the dead as if they still have magical properties. Grieving husbands keep their partners’ remains by the bed, and parents who have lost a child create a shrine with a little casket in the baby’s room. You can buy vials to carry ashes in a handbag and websites offer cremation jewellery, so mum or dad can be with you everywhere, even at parties and on holiday.

There’s a growing trend to turn ashes into crystals or even diamonds. I don’t want to be disrespectful to the dead, but ashes are ashes, when all is said and done, just as sticking a box in the earth is pretty meaningless. I sprinkled mum’s remains all around the village in North Wales where she grew up, and when I got to the beach, a big handful blew all over me – I thought she would have found that hilarious.