Burial of remains following medical research

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The Catholic Church issued new instructions for cremations back in 2016:

The Vatican said ashes and bone fragments cannot be kept at home, since that would deprive the Christian community as a whole from remembering the dead. Rather, Church authorities should designate a sacred place, such as a cemetery or church area, to hold them.

Only in extraordinary cases can a bishop allow ashes to be kept at home, it said.

The document said remains cannot be divided among family members or put in lockets or other mementoes. Nor can the ashes be scattered in the air, land or sea since doing so would give the appearance of “pantheism, naturalism or nihilism,” the guidelines said.

In particular, they require that the ashes be held in a sacred place, such as a Catholic Cemetery, and that the ashes kept whole.

U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Secretariat of Divine Worship has said this about comingling of ashes:

Other practices such as commingling cremated remains or dividing up cremated remains among family members or friends are not acceptable for Catholics.

So, to answer your question, according to the Catholic church, your friend would have to have her great aunt's ashes kept separate from the rest, and interred in a Catholic cemetery in order for it to be a proper Catholic burial.

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