Catholic Information Service for Africa (Nairobi)
30 September 2008
Nairobi — The head of the Presbyterian Church of East Africa (PCEA), Rev. Dr David Githii, has called on Christians to stop prayer services for the dead at a time when it has emerged that Kenyans spend heavily on elaborate funerals.
Githii told a congregation at Tumutumu PCEA church in Central Kenya at the weekend to stop holding prayers for the dead in church, terming the practice blasphemy and defilement of God's house.
"When a person dies and you take the body inside the church, are you not insulting God? When one dies, that's all and there is nothing we can do about it. So stop this nonsense of placing bodies near the altar, ostensibly to pray for him or her to go to heaven," he said, according to the Daily Nation.
The prayers are often part of elaborate funerals, which, according to a national survey by The Standard newspaper, cost Kenyans some KShs 7 billion a year.
Every major town now has a thriving funeral business, funeral homes and coffin makers cashing in on the lucrative business. Approximately 190,000 people die annually in Kenya and many families spend an average of KShs 60,000 per burial. Others spend between KShs 100,000 to Kshs 1 million.
Some families are even forced to fundraise or to borrow money to bury their loved ones in style, sometimes forcing them to incur debts that they are left to pay.
In Kisumu, grave merchants are taking advantage of grieving families through illegal cemeteries. The dealers charge according to the body to be buried and prohibit attendance by mourners.
According to surveys, public cemeteries are congested and new measures of burying the dead need to be adopted.
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