As far as the Vatican is concerned, Archbishop Brady's comments on funeral eulogies are a matter for him and the church in Ireland, rather than Rome.
While the section of the Vatican which deals with liturgical matters, the Congregation for the Divine Cult and the Discipline of the Sacraments, monitors major liturgical issues, a level of autonomy is extended to local churches regarding non-sacramental issues.
Vatican sources regard Archbishop Brady's directive as a simple reminder to the faithful that the funeral Mass, while being a celebration of a person's life, is essentially a profession of faith in the after-life rather than an extended, improvised wake.
Local custom and practice consequently varies within the one-billion-strong church. The most obvious example comes from Africa where a process known as "inculturisation", called for in 1985 by Pope John Paul II, tends to mean forming a delicate bridge between Chrisitan faith and African culture. Expressed in terms of funeral rites, inculturisation tends to incorporate, to some extent, the African cult of ancestral spirits.
Closer to home, local practices differ greatly. In Switzerland, for example, it is not uncommon for the funeral Mass to be said without the body since some local authorities greatly restrict the transportation of the remains on grounds of hygiene.
In Italy, funeral services are often highly emotional affairs with space made available for improvised readings while the sight of a coffin draped with the team shirt of the deceased's favourite football team is commonplace. Italian funerals, too, can take on a political dimension all too familiar to Irish readers. In particular, space has often been made available for quasi-political diatribes at the funerals of victims of the Mafia.
