The Roman Catholic Church has banned the scattering of ashes of the dead, insisting that, in some circumstances, those who request it for themselves should even be denied a “Christian funeral”.

Strict new Vatican guidelines forbid a list of increasingly popular means of commemorating loved ones - from scattering ashes at sea to having them turned into jewellery or put in a locket – dismissing them as New Age practices and “pantheism”.

A formal instruction, approved by Pope Francis, even forbids Catholics from keeping ashes in an urn at home, other than in “grave and exceptional cases”.

It also rules out the increasingly common practice of dividing people’s ashes between members of the family.

The document issued by the Vatican’s doctrinal watchdog the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) claims many modern cremation practices increasingly reflect non-Christian ideas about “fusion with Mother Nature”.