State-sanctioned suicide and ecclesiastical funerals

My guest column, "State-sanctioned suicide and ecclesiastical funerals" is coming available in the New Oxford Review (June 2009) at 39-40. In the column, I ask whether the conditions for withholding ecclesiastical funerals from Catholics who kill themselves in accord with recent civil suicide legislation might be met. As American law continues its headlong pursuit of calling evil good (Isaiah V:20), Canon 1184 frames a question that, I fear, we Catholics are going to have to ask ourselves ever more frequently.

Update, 17 June. My original article has been made available at the NOR website.