'Rival' funerals alarm Church

THE CHURCH of England is facing the final nail in the coffin of its claim to "hatch, match and dispatch" the nation, writes Cole Moreton.

Commercialisation of the funeral industry is going hand in hand with alternative venues for weddings and baby-naming ceremonies. Big firms have taken over many funeral parlours to offer a "one-stop" service at a crematorium, and many use their own rotas of ministers; sometimes the local vicar is not even informed.

On Wednesday the Church of England's ruling body, the General Synod, will vote on a motion presented by the diocese of Southwark, regretting the way undertakers can put pressure on bereaved families not to hold the funeral in church.The report warns that "if clergy resist requests for more personally distinctive funerals, families may well go elsewhere".

Nearly a third of the 600,000 funerals in England each year are non- Anglican. Allowing for other denominations, it suggests "a small but growing trend for ... non-religious ceremonies", says the report Good Funerals to be debated by Synod. The Natural Death Centre, for instance, advocates cardboard coffins and green burials in woodland; the British Humanist Association offers a guide to "funerals without God".