MANGALURU: In order to tide over the acute shortage of space in its burial ground, the century-old St Francis Xavier Church at Bejai, Mangaluru, has gone in for vaults (above ground burial chambers) and niches (pigeonholes to keep ashes or bones of the dead).Church Parish Priest Fr Wilson Vitus D’Souza blessed and inaugurated the new facility that consists of 206 vaults and 50 niches on Monday. At present, vault facility is optional as people can still go for underground burial as there is some space left in the church’s graveyard.

Fr Victor Vijay Lobo, PRO, Mangalore Diocese, said in view of the fact that many cemeteries are running out of space and keeping future requirements in view, the diocese wants to have vaults and niches wherever possible at the side cemetery compound wall. These vaults and niches will have name plaques of the deceased.

Sources said already a few churches like Angelore and Derebail have this facility and many more are planning to go in for it. People can also reserve vaults for their family members for a period of 20 years for a fee. A vault could be opened for the next interment after 12 years.

Niches could be used only for the interment of bones exhumed from the non-reserved graves after two years or ashes in an urn which also can be reserved for 20 years.

Fr Lobo said the niches can be used by people whose relatives are buried elsewhere. “If the authorities decide that all Covid deaths should be cremated in electrical crematorium, then the ashes can be kept in niches,” he said.