Who a Mass Can Be Offered For

Who Can a Mass Be Offered For? §

When you ask a priest for a Mass, he offers it for the person or the purpose you name. The Church’s word for this is apply: he applies the Mass for them (what a Mass intention is). Canon law sets no limit on who that can be.

Integrum est sacerdoti Missam applicare pro quibusvis, tum vivis tum defunctis.

It is open to a priest to apply the Mass for anyone at all, the living as well as the dead.

Canon 901. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

Many people remember the exceptions in the Code of 1917. The present Code, of 1983, keeps none of them. What the Church still keeps apart is the Mass a priest applies, which can be for anyone, and what’s done in public, such as a funeral.

Can a Mass Be Offered for Someone Who Wasn’t Catholic? §

Yes. A Mass for a grandmother who was a Methodist is applied for her like any other (canon 901). Even in 1976, when the law still forbade public Masses for those who had died outside full communion with the Catholic Church, the Holy See said this of private Masses for those who had been baptized in other churches:

Ad missas privatas quod attinet, nulla, uti notum est, habetur difficultas, ut pro his personis defunctis celebrentur; e contrario, multiplici ex titulo, v. g. pietatis, amicitiae, grati animi etc. possunt commendari, nullo vetito obsistente.

As for private Masses, there is, as is well known, no difficulty in their being celebrated for these persons who have died; on the contrary, they can be commended on many grounds, such as piety, friendship, gratitude and the like, where no prohibition stands in the way.

Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, Accidit in diversis, 11 June 1976. Latin · The Holy See’s English · Our translation.

The same decree kept the rule against public Masses as the general norm, partly out of regard for the conscience of those who hadn’t fully professed the Catholic faith, and allowed exceptions, on conditions, until the new Code. The Code of 1983 has no such rule, and the bishop or his vicar may now allow even a church funeral for someone baptized in another church or Christian community, unless it was clearly against their wishes and provided their own minister can’t be had (canon 1183 §3). We read the 1976 rule, which rested on canons of the 1917 Code, as having lapsed with them.

At the Mass itself, only those in full communion with the Church may be named in the Eucharistic Prayer. Other Christians, living or dead, may be prayed for publicly in a service’s “litanies and other invocations” (Ecumenical Directory, 121), which we read as including the Prayer of the Faithful, so her name may be remembered there. If her household would rather it weren’t announced, the parish can list the Mass simply “for a special intention.”¹ A Mass card is usually welcome too: one priest who has written about this has found Protestants “consistently grateful.”²

Can a Mass Be Offered for Someone Who Wasn’t Baptized? §

Yes: for a Jewish friend, a Muslim neighbor, a father who never practiced any faith. Canon 901 draws no line at baptism, and, as one priest columnist put it, a Mass “can be requested for a person of any religion or none at all.”³ The Catechism, teaching that baptism is necessary for salvation for those to whom the Gospel has been proclaimed and who could have asked for it, adds: “God has bound salvation to the sacrament of Baptism, but he himself is not bound by his sacraments” (1257).

For a baby who died before baptism, the Church “can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them,” and God’s mercy allows us “to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without Baptism” (Catechism, 1261). When the parents meant to have their child baptized, the bishop may allow a church funeral (canon 1183 §2), and as one parish tells its people, a Mass “may always be celebrated for a child who has died.”⁴

Can a Mass Be Said for Someone Who Took Their Own Life? §

Yes. You can ask for a Mass for someone who died by suicide as for anyone else (canon 901). The Catechism teaches that suicide is gravely contrary to the love we owe ourselves, our neighbor and God (2280 to 2281). It also teaches: “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide” (2282). Then it says: “We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.” And “the Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives” (2283).

Many people remember an older rule. The Code of 1917 refused church burial, and with it any funeral Mass, even on the anniversary, to anyone who had taken his own life deliberato consilio, by deliberate choice, unless he had shown some sign of repentance, though if doubt remained, the burial was to be given (canons 1240 and 1241 of 1917, our translation). The Code of 1983 doesn’t name suicide among the reasons for refusing a funeral (canon 1184), and the faithful who die are to be given one (canon 1176 §1).

The Archdiocese of San Antonio, for one, holds a Mass each year for those who have died by suicide, and for those who mourn them, “whether that loss came last month or forty years ago.” If you’re struggling yourself, in the United States you can call or text 988, the Suicide and Crisis Lifeline, at any hour.⁵

Can You Have a Mass Said for Someone Living, or for Yourself? §

Yes. Canon 901 covers the living as fully as the dead, and the Eucharist is offered “to obtain spiritual or temporal benefits from God” (Catechism, 1414): for a friend facing surgery, a couple on their wedding day, a son you hope will come back to the faith, or in thanksgiving.

That includes you. Any Catholic, as Fr. Edward McNamara, a professor of liturgy, has written, “can request that a Mass be celebrated for his or her private intentions.”⁶

The person you pray for doesn’t need to know. If your parish prints the week’s intentions, though, think before giving a living person’s illness as the reason (what to write instead).

Can a Mass Be Offered for a Group, a Country or the Souls in Purgatory? §

Yes. One intention can name a husband and wife, a whole household, or all your relatives who have died (wording for each), though parishes count names differently, so ask how yours counts.⁷ It needn’t name a person at all: the Roman Missal has Masses for the needs of the whole world and of the Church (General Instruction of the Roman Missal, 368), and a Catholic may ask, in Fr. McNamara’s words, for “practically any worthwhile or good and holy intention.”⁸ That includes the Church, the Pope, your country, peace, and the souls in Purgatory, for whom the Eucharistic sacrifice is offered “so that they may be able to enter into the light and peace of Christ” (Catechism, 1371).

Can a Mass Be Offered for Someone Excommunicated, or a Public Sinner? §

Yes. Excommunication keeps a person from receiving the sacraments himself (canon 1331 §1), but no canon forbids a priest to offer Mass for him. The Code of 1917 allowed it only privately and without scandal, and for one whom the faithful were bound to shun, only for his conversion (canon 2262 §2 of 1917, our translation). Canon 901 keeps nothing of that. The intercession of Christians, the Catechism says, “recognizes no boundaries” (2636).

What the law still guards is the public side. Unless they gave some sign of repentance before death, a church funeral and any funeral Mass are refused to notorious apostates, heretics and schismatics, to those who chose cremation for reasons contrary to the Christian faith, and to other manifest sinners whose church funeral would give public scandal; in doubt, the local Ordinary decides (canons 1184 and 1185). Even then, a priest may apply a Mass for the person privately. As an article in one canon law journal sums it up, the limits now concern the cases where applying the Mass becomes a public event.⁹

The wording counts too. A Mass may be offered for a public official whatever their faith or conduct, Fr. McNamara writes, though not necessarily for their intentions, which may run against the Church’s teaching.⁶

Can a Mass Be Offered for a Pet? §

Not for a pet that has died, though the grief is real. A Mass offered for someone who has died is offered for a person, in the hope that, if they died in God’s grace and friendship but still need purifying, they may enter the joy of heaven (Catechism, 1030 to 1032). An animal has no sins to be purified of, so a Mass for the repose of a pet isn’t something the Church offers.

That isn’t because the Church thinks little of animals. “Animals are God’s creatures,” the Catechism says. “He surrounds them with his providential care. By their mere existence they bless him and give him glory” (2416). Thank God for yours in your own prayers, and if you like, ask for a Mass for yourself in your grief. Many parishes hold a blessing of animals each year on the feast of a saint such as St. Francis of Assisi,¹⁰ a good time to bring the ones still with you.

What to Say When You Ask §

Ask your parish office, and don’t feel you have to explain anything. Give the name as it should be written, say whether the person is living or has died, and say if they weren’t Catholic, so the priest knows how to pray for them by name. If you’d rather the name weren’t printed or read aloud, say that too (how to ask, step by step). It’s customary to give an offering, and if you can’t, ask anyway: priests are urged to offer Mass for people’s intentions even when nothing has been given (canon 945 §2).