While surfing around the British Humanist Association website, I was amused to find the page giving Fees for Humanist Ceremonies. The fee ranges are given as follows:
- Funerals/Memorials - £130-£175
- Weddings/Partnerships - £320-£700
- Namings - £130-£250
- Funerals - £119 under the same arrangements (payable to funeral director as part of charges for disbursements) although this fee is not in any way insisted on.
- Weddings - voluntary donation. I am normally given something like £100-£150. £300 would be exceptional.
- Baptisms - voluntary donation. I am normally given something like £20-£50. £100 would be exceptional.
Curious to find out what happens at a naming ceremony, I had a quick google. There is one with Richard Dawkins taking part as a celebrity humanist (but not the "celebrant") and here is a sample ceremony. The humanist ceremonies are not at all unlike the kind of creative liturgy you get offered at some Catholic retreat centres. They made me revise my opinion of the humanist fees: I don't think £250 would be enough to make it worth sitting through something like that, let alone presiding at it.
11 comments:
I don't object to humanists having their ceremonies, but this smacks of exploitation - and the slogan "for the one life we have" is a definite dig.
When my wife and I got married, we managed to get the money to pay the priest, thank God, although we understood that the fees could be waived. We married in smart civvies and had the reception in my (new) mother-in-law's front room. Not what I had wanted to give my new wife, but it'll be 20 years before too long.
"Will you provide support ... (his/her) wish to follow whatever path her heart chooses?"
So if the child decide to become Catholic, then the expensive Humanist Society is cool with that?
And isn't 'Celebrant' a bit too hierarchical for such a 'progressive lifestance'?
Just wondering.
On the the same theme,I was surprised to see that Registrars of Births, Deaths and Marriages also now offer "Civic Funerals". Their fees are similar to the Humanist Association`s fees.
I think that the new "service" was introduced by this Labour Government no doubt as a means of further secularisation. However there is a touch of the French Revolution about the idea: a "secular religion". I think the new "services" came in at the same time as the new ceremonies for British Citizenship.
Or is this merely a further attempt to introduce "competition" among "service providers" in "the provision of bereavement services" ?
It's odd how their ceremonies ape their Christian equivalents. According to an undertaker friend of mine the guy who conducts most humanist funerals in this neck of the woods always wears a black suit and a black turtle neck sweater.
"Edited/co-authored by Martha Knox"
One of my pet hates is the use of 'author' as a verb. What is wrong with 'write'?
Respectfully, Father, I must observe that your interpretation of marriage in Britain appears to be entirely unlike what we experience here in California.
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Marriage here is civil, essentially a secular contract, validated legally by its recording by the County.
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What the church can offer is administration of the Sacrament of Holy Matrimony, a rather different concept, with the Book of Common Prayer as its standard format.
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Churches here do charge for the use of their facilities for a wedding. Humanists do not. And many Humanist celebrants charge no fee although some accept donations which are often passed on to some cause.
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Your observations however valid are not necessarily applicable outside British context, and the conduct of Humanist Celebrants here is quite admirable.
Should you have the misfortune to attend one of these ceremonies, Father, I hope you will provide us with a full photographic record, and also let on what you proposed as 'a personal special wish for the baby'. And whether you were then ejected from the circle.
People actually pay several hundreds of pounds to be called names by Humanists...?
I think they have hiked up their prices fairly recently. I have a friend - a lapsed Catholic who was trained to do these things and who got paid about £70-90. With two large counties to cover, they made a loss, because of the cost of petrol for the suv. They also got narked because they were told off for not using the funerals as an opportunity for "evangelising". They saw their role as being a way for non-believers to avoid the hypocrisy of having a religious funeral - so were not happy about this, and declined to continue.
Hm- "wandering a celestial path"...? Sounds a little too much like "supernaturalism" to me. For people who pride themselves on their rationalism, there seems to be too much emotionalism happening here. But, what would I know?
I think that Terry is absolutely on the nail with the comment about a "secular religion".
This is exactly what I believe it is all leading up to.
Firstly - you weaken, undermine, lessen, invalidate, missinform and create an ethos and culture of relativism.
Then, over a few generations, when the masses have forgotten what their Judaeo-Christian cultural heritage was all about, start slowly bringing in these oh-so-innocent 'new' concepts, a mish-mash of pagan ceremonies with a dollop of 'new-ageism' mixed in.
Add some Free Masonry of course, enshrine it in Law and call it a 'Humanist Ceremony' - Hey Presto! You have the New One-World Religion.
A cousin told me yesterday that a local parish here in Dublin wants €600 for use of the church for a wedding even if one is a parishioner. I'm still not sure I believe it. Your breakdown of what a priest can expect to receive for funerals etc matches my experience here - just change the £ to €!
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