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Funerals

The Funerals page is where you record everything tied to a Catholic funeral — the deceased, the family contacts, the funeral home, the funeral Mass itself, and the surrounding rites such as the wake or vigil, the interment, and any later memorial Mass. It is built so that one entry in Sacramentum captures the full sequence of services a parish coordinates after a death, with reverent care for the records and easy printable documents for the celebrant.

The Funerals page​

Navigate to Admin Dashboard → Sacraments & Rites → Funerals. The page is laid out in three parts:

  • A short description and an Add Funeral button at the top.
  • A Filters card with search by deceased or contact, a Location filter, and a Timeframe toggle for Upcoming or Past funerals.
  • The Scheduled Funerals table, listing each funeral with its primary service date, time, deceased name, location, celebrant, and status badge (upcoming, completed, or cancelled).

Each row carries small action buttons on the right: Download Certificate, Download Detail Sheet, Edit, Mark Completed, and Delete.

The table also shows identity badges next to the deceased name. Linked badges indicate that the deceased or the family contact has been resolved to a canonical Person record; an Unlinked badge means no such match yet exists. Identity resolution happens in the background when you save a funeral with enough information to match an existing Person.

Adding a funeral​

  1. Click Add Funeral. The dialog opens with four tabs in create mode: Deceased & Family, Funeral Mass, Other Rites, and Visibility. A fifth Liturgy tab appears once the funeral has been saved at least once.
  2. On the Deceased & Family tab, fill in the Deceased Name (required), the Date of Birth, the Date of Death, the Date in Book, and the Records Location for the parish register.
  3. In the same tab, add the Family Contact — name, relationship to the deceased, phone, email, and address. This is the person the parish office will reach when coordinating details.
  4. Under Funeral Home, record the funeral home name, the funeral director's name, phone, email, and the funeral home address. These are pulled into the printed detail sheet so the celebrant has every contact in one place.
  5. Switch to the Funeral Mass tab. Set the Service Type — either a full Funeral Mass or a Funeral Liturgy (without Mass). Choose a Duration, then set the Date and Time.
  6. Pick the Location, then either tick Include main worship space or select a specific Room from that location's facilities.
  7. Pick the Celebrant (required) and optionally a Deacon / Acolyte. Tick Include visiting clergy to surface visiting priests in the dropdown.
  8. Set the Requested Offering and Stipend amounts in dollars, and add any internal Notes.
  9. Click Save.

Once the record is saved, you stay in the dialog and the Liturgy tab activates, ready for the family planning step described below.

tip

The Date of Birth, Date of Death, and Date in Book fields are anchored to the parish's local timezone, so dates do not shift when you view the funeral in another time zone or print its detail sheet.

Adding the surrounding rites​

Catholic funerals usually involve more than a single liturgy. On the Other Rites tab you can record up to three companion services for the same funeral:

  • Wake or Vigil — the prayer service the night before, often at a funeral home.
  • Interment — the rite of committal at the cemetery.
  • Memorial Mass — a later anniversary or month's-mind Mass.

For each one, fill in the Date, Time, Duration, Location Name (free text — these often happen offsite), Celebrant, Deacon / Acolyte, Stipend, and any Notes. Leave a section blank if it does not apply; only services with a date set are saved.

After the funeral is saved, open it in Edit mode and switch to the Liturgy tab. From there you can generate a planning link that lets the family choose readings, Psalms, Gospel acclamations, intercessions, and music selections through a guided online form. When the family submits the form, their selections come back into the funeral record so the celebrant and music director see everything in one place.

The configuration that drives this planning workflow — available readings, default selections, and the language the form is presented in — lives under the parish's settings. Settings reference will cover the Funeral Liturgy settings tab in detail.

Editing a funeral​

Open the Edit action on any row to revisit every detail of the funeral. All five tabs are available: Deceased & Family, Funeral Mass, Other Rites, Liturgy, and Visibility. Save your changes and they apply immediately to the table, the public calendar (when visible), and any printed detail sheet you generate afterward.

If a funeral was added under one celebrant and you need to reassign it — for example, the original priest is unavailable — open it, pick a different celebrant on the Funeral Mass tab, and save. Sacramentum updates the schedule and the printable documents accordingly.

Controlling visibility on the public calendar​

Funerals show up on your parish's public calendar by default so parishioners can attend. The Visibility tab controls this:

  • Tick Show on public calendar to publish the funeral; untick it to keep the entry internal only.
  • When public, choose between Full details (deceased name appears) and Anonymous (only the funeral type appears, no personal name).

This setting governs both the public calendar on your parish website and any iCal feeds that sync to parishioners' personal calendars.

info

Some families prefer privacy, especially in difficult circumstances. The Anonymous detail level lets you keep a funeral on the calendar so room availability is reflected, while withholding the deceased's name from the public view.

Marking a funeral completed​

Once the funeral Mass and its accompanying rites have been celebrated, click the Mark Completed button on the row. A confirmation dialog appears explaining that marking complete indicates all rites have been fulfilled. Confirming flips the status badge to Completed and moves the funeral into the Past timeframe view.

You can still edit a completed funeral if you need to correct a record — the entry remains in the system permanently for canonical reference.

Deleting a funeral​

If a funeral was created in error, open the Delete action on its row. A confirmation explains that deletion is permanent. Confirm to remove the record. Use this with care: a funeral that was actually celebrated should be Marked Completed rather than deleted, so the canonical history is preserved.

Downloading documents​

Two PDFs are available from every row's right-hand actions:

  • The Detail Sheet — the print-ready summary the celebrant uses on the day of the funeral. It includes the deceased's information, the family contact, the funeral home, every scheduled service (wake, Mass, interment, memorial), and any notes.
  • The Certificate — the official funeral record document, useful for the family or for the parish register.

Both files are named after the deceased so they are easy to file. If a download fails, Sacramentum shows a toast with the error so you can retry or check that the funeral has the data it needs.

What's next​