Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos | July 20, 2026
There was a time when funerals were among the most solemn moments in human society. They were occasions marked by silence rather than spectacle, reverence rather than curiosity, and prayer rather than performance. Whether in African traditional communities or within the Christian liturgical tradition, the final farewell accorded to the dead expressed a society’s deepest convictions about the sanctity of human life and the enduring dignity of the human person. The body lying in repose was approached with profound respect, not because life remained in it, but because it had once been the dwelling place of a person created in the image and likeness of God and, according to Christian faith, remained destined for resurrection (Catechism of the Catholic Church [CCC], 1997). Death, therefore, never diminished human dignity; rather, it called forth humanity’s highest expressions of compassion, restraint, solidarity, and hope.
Yet, within a remarkably short period, the digital revolution has transformed this sacred landscape in deeply troubling ways. The smartphone, perhaps the most influential communication device of the twenty-first century, has quietly redefined the way many people encounter death. Today, at funeral Masses/events across many parts of the world, one increasingly witnesses an unsettling spectacle. Before prayers begin, before grieving families have gathered themselves, and often before the liturgy has concluded, mobile phones are already raised toward the coffin. The body of the deceased, sometimes dressed in liturgical vestments, sometimes lying peacefully in an open casket, becomes the object of relentless photography and video recording. Every angle is captured. Faces lean over coffins for selfies. Videos slowly pan across the lifeless body while sentimental music is later added for online audiences. Within minutes, these images appear on Facebook, WhatsApp, TikTok, Instagram, X, and YouTube, where they are viewed, shared, commented upon, downloaded, and permanently archived by countless strangers who neither knew the deceased nor have any legitimate reason to witness such intimate moments.
More disturbing still is that this phenomenon is no longer confined to funeral ceremonies. Victims of road traffic accidents are routinely filmed while lying in pools of blood instead of receiving immediate assistance. The bodies of victims of violent crimes are displayed across social media long before relatives receive official notification. Priests who devoted their lives to proclaiming the Gospel, bishops whose episcopal ministry inspired thousands, consecrated religious who spent decades serving the poor, and lay Christian faithful who deserved a peaceful farewell are increasingly transformed into digital exhibits and content. Their final public appearance is no longer governed by reverence but by algorithms that reward visibility, novelty, and emotional engagement. Death has become content and an extended form of social paparazzi. Mourning has become performance. The corpse has become a commodity in the economy of digital attention and content creation.
Such practices represent far more than poor taste. They constitute a profound ethical failure in contemporary communication and a gross disrespect for the remains of the deceased. Every photograph communicates a message. Every video reflects a moral decision. Every upload asks an implicit question: What is the value of this human person now that life has departed? When the body of the deceased is reduced to material for online circulation, the answer communicated, intentionally or otherwise, is deeply troubling. The deceased ceases to be encountered as a person deserving reverence and becomes an object of curiosity, consumption, entertainment, or public display. This transformation fundamentally contradicts both Christian anthropology and universally recognised principles of human dignity.
The Catholic Church has consistently maintained that the dignity of the human person does not expire at death. The Order of Christian Funerals emphasises that the Church honours the body with reverence because it was the temple of the Holy Spirit and because Christian burial expresses faith in the resurrection. Likewise, the Catechism of the Catholic Church teaches unequivocally that “the bodies of the dead must be treated with respect and charity, in faith and hope of the Resurrection” (CCC, 1997, para. 2300). Respect, however, extends beyond the physical handling of the body. It includes the manner in which the deceased is represented, remembered, photographed, and communicated to others. The moral obligation to preserve dignity does not end when biological life ceases; if anything, it becomes more urgent because the deceased can no longer protect his or her own privacy or reputation. The Pontifical Council for Social Communications holds that communication technologies should always serve truth, solidarity, justice, and respect for persons rather than exploitation or sensationalism (Pontifical Council for Social Communications, 2000). Pope Francis repeatedly warned against forms of communication that exploit suffering or reduce persons to objects of consumption, urging communicators instead to cultivate a “culture of encounter” grounded in compassion, respect, and authentic human relationships (Francis, 2023). These principles apply with particular force to images of the dead. Communication that violates dignity, however technologically sophisticated, fails the fundamental ethical purpose for which communication exists.
Beyond theology, the indiscriminate circulation of funeral images inflicts measurable social and psychological harm. Families frequently encounter photographs of their deceased loved ones on social media before they have completed the painful work of grieving. Children may unexpectedly see graphic images of deceased parents or relatives while browsing online. Images intended for intimate family remembrance become permanent digital artefacts beyond anyone’s control, vulnerable to manipulation, ridicule, or misuse. The permanence of digital media means that what is uploaded in seconds may remain searchable for decades, effectively denying the deceased the privacy that every human being deserves. What compassionate purpose is served by exposing a lifeless body to millions of viewers? What social good is achieved when a bishop’s corpse, a priest’s remains, or the body of a road accident victim becomes viral content? In most cases, the answer is painfully simple: none. Such posts rarely educate, rarely evangelise, rarely console, and rarely promote the common good. They primarily satisfy curiosity, generate online engagement, and feed a digital culture that increasingly mistakes exposure for remembrance.
It is therefore necessary to state this matter plainly. Not every moment deserves to be photographed, and not every photograph deserves to be published. The ability to capture an image does not create a moral right to disseminate it. The availability of social media does not impose an obligation to upload every human experience. Indeed, one of the highest expressions of media literacy is knowing when not to record, when not to post, and when reverent silence communicates more profoundly than any image ever could.
It is against this disturbing background that this paper introduces the concept of Funeral Media Literacy as a new ethical framework for digital communication.
Funeral Media Literacy is the ethical capacity to discern whether, when, how, by whom, and for what legitimate purpose funeral-related images and digital content should be created, preserved, or communicated, in a manner that safeguards the intrinsic dignity of the deceased, protects the emotional wellbeing of bereaved families, respects the sacred character of death and funeral rites, and promotes communication that serves truth, compassion, and the common good rather than curiosity, spectacle, or digital consumption.
The development of Funeral Media Literacy is no longer optional. It is a moral imperative for a society that possesses unprecedented technological power but risks losing the wisdom to recognise that the final act of love we owe the dead is not public exposure, but enduring respect.
Fr. Dr. Okhueleigbe Osemhantie Ãmos, Priest of Uromi Diocese & Lecturer @ CIWA, Port Harcourt, Nigeria
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