This report explores the history and modern practices surrounding death and mourning in Boston's religious communities.

Scholars and critics often point to an American tradition of death and mourning that dominates our culture’s funeral rites. It is at once derided and celebrated: for some, it represents a brutal scheme of extortion and abuse; for others a tasteful way to dispose of the dead.[1] For all, this tradition is a uniquely American event, one with no precedent in either American or Christian religious history.

This reading of...