“Cemeteries are reverting to old practices,” said Keith Eggener, a professor of architectural history at the University of Oregon and the author of a book about American cemeteries. In the 19th century, “cemeteries were full of beautiful trails,” Dr. Eggener said. “People would take guests and have picnics. A cemetery was considered a major ornament to a city.”

There is a certain symmetry to the Catholic church’s making California wine; Spanish missionaries brought grapes and winemaking to the state, probably in late 1700s. The vines also have a spiritual appeal: Wine is a crucial part of the Catholic Mass and the inspiration for Christ’s first miracle, at the wedding at Cana.

When Bishop Barber was a student at the Jesuit novitiate, a training seminary in Los Gatos, Calif., he picked grapes with a small cutting knife in the college’s vineyards, planted in the 1880s, as did Jerry Brown, the current governor, who was once a student there. During the first hour of picking, they would pray in silence until “the field boss blew the whistle,” the bishop said.

“One nice benefit: Every night at supper they served us some wine with dinner made with grapes previously picked from the same vineyard we worked on that day,” he said.

Planting cemetery grapevines in 2006 was a small part of Mr. Seelig’s solution for a money-losing operation.

“I wondered if there was a disconnect where cemeteries were no longer relevant to the modern world,” Mr. Seelig said. “What I learned is that the model had changed.” The Catholic church’s model “needed to be updated,” he added.