Catholic Funeral Program Template

The template, panel by panel

This is a bi-fold program: one sheet of letter paper folded once, giving four panels of 5.5 by 8.5 inches. It is the format most parish offices and print shops expect. Copy each panel below and replace everything in square brackets.

If you need more room than four panels, the usual answer is a booklet: two folded sheets nested, giving eight panels. The extra space nearly always goes to photographs and a longer remembrance, not to the order of the Mass, which stays exactly as it is above. The panel-by-panel layout guide shows how the pages fall in a booklet so nothing ends up upside down.

A filled-in example

Everything here is invented. The family, the parish and the priest do not exist. Use it to see what the blanks look like once they are filled, and how much detail is normal.

Two things families commonly get wrong here. The homily is not the eulogy: it is preached on the readings and on Christian hope, and it belongs to the priest or deacon. The words of remembrance are separate, come near the end, and in most parishes are one person speaking for a few minutes. Print both lines exactly where they fall so nobody is surprised.

Cover wording, and what to call the service

The cover has four jobs: whose funeral this is, when, where, and what kind of liturgy it is. Everything else is optional. These are the lines American parishes see most often.

Dates, titles and names

Write dates the American way, in full: February 19, 2026. Use the full legal name on the cover, with a nickname in quotation marks if the family uses one, and include the maiden name for a married woman, since older relatives will look for it. Priests are Rev. followed by the name; a permanent deacon is Rev. Mr.; a monsignor is Rev. Msgr. Check the spelling against the parish bulletin rather than from memory.

If there is no Mass

Not every Catholic funeral is a Mass. The Order of Christian Funerals also provides a Funeral Liturgy outside Mass, used when a priest is not available, when the service is held at the funeral home, when many of those attending are not Catholic, or simply because the family asked for it. A deacon or a lay minister may lead it.

The program is the same document with the middle section removed. Keep the Introductory Rites and the Liturgy of the Word exactly as they are, delete the Liturgy of the Eucharist, and go straight to the Final Commendation.

A vigil the evening before is a separate service with its own short program, or more often no program at all. In many American parishes the vigil includes the rosary, and it is the place where several people can speak freely about the person who died. If the family has a lot to say, that is where it fits.

Prayers and verses to print inside

A Catholic program usually carries one or two printed prayers, most often at the foot of the back panel or on the panel facing the photograph. These are the ones families ask for. All are traditional and free to reproduce.

• “Eternal rest grant unto her, O Lord, and let perpetual light shine upon her. May her soul, and the souls of all the faithful departed, through the mercy of God, rest in peace. Amen.”

  Eternal Rest

  The prayer most often printed at the foot of a Catholic program. Change her to him as needed.

• “May the angels lead you into paradise.”

  In Paradisum

  The antiphon sung as the coffin is carried out of the church, after the Final Commendation. One line of it reads well on the back panel.

• “Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee. Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb, Jesus. Holy Mary, Mother of God, pray for us sinners, now and at the hour of our death. Amen.”

  The Hail Mary

  Printed in full when the rosary is prayed at the vigil, or when the family wants a Marian devotion named.

• “I am the resurrection and the life: he that believeth in me, although he be dead, shall live.”

  John 11:25, Douay-Rheims

  A good cover verse. Keep it to one sentence so it does not crowd the name.

• “Lord, make me an instrument of your peace. Where there is hatred, let me sow love.”

  Prayer of St. Francis

  Usually printed in full on the prayer card rather than the program, where it takes a whole panel.

If the Mass includes Psalm 23 as the responsorial psalm, print only the refrain the congregation sings back, and take its wording from the parish worship aid. It is the Lectionary’s wording, it is under copyright, and it is not the King James.

Readings for the Mass itself come from the Lectionary, and the parish will give you the translation it uses. Do not paste a passage in from a website and assume it matches what will be read aloud. If you want the passages families most often choose, with the short ones marked, see scripture for a funeral program and Psalm 23 in the usual versions.

The same prayers work on the keepsake card handed out with the program. Catholic funeral prayer cards covers what goes on the back of a card, which saints families choose, and the standard size.

Music, and what the parish will ask

There are four or five moments in a funeral Mass where music happens. Naming them in the program helps people follow along, and helps the organist too. The parish music director has the final say on all of it.

Most parishes have a written music policy, and it is not personal. Recorded music and secular songs are generally not used during the Mass, however much they meant to the person who died. Those songs have a home: the vigil, the luncheon afterwards, or the slideshow at the reception. Ask the music director early, because reprinting the choice on eighty programs is the expensive way to find out.

If you print hymn texts rather than titles, the parish’s reprint license number has to appear on the program, usually in small type at the bottom of the last panel. The office will give you the exact line. Printing titles only requires nothing.

The back panel: committal, pallbearers, thank-you

The back panel is where people look for the practical answers: where to drive next, whether there is food, and where to send a donation. Put those first and the sentiment last.

Pallbearers are traditionally listed in the program, six names in two columns, with honorary pallbearers underneath. If you have not settled on who is carrying and who is walking, pallbearer duties explains how many you need and how to ask. For more acknowledgement wording than the paragraph above, there are thirty versions in funeral acknowledgement wording.

Size, paper and how many

A bi-fold on letter paper is the default and it is the right choice for almost every Catholic funeral. Print on a heavier stock than you would use for a letter, somewhere in the range of a good resume paper or a light card, so the program does not go limp in a warm church. Matte reads better than gloss under fluorescent light and takes a pen if someone wants to write on it.

If you would rather not lay any of this out, Reposa asks a short list of questions and produces the finished Catholic program as a print-ready PDF, with the order of the Mass already in the correct sequence and the prayer cards set to match. Sizes and paper weights are covered in more depth in funeral program sizes and funeral program printing.

You are allowed to do less than this

Everything above is what a full program can contain, not what it must. A single folded sheet with the name, the dates, the order of the Mass and one photograph is a complete, dignified, entirely correct Catholic funeral program. Nobody in that church will count the panels.

If you are short on time, cut in this order: the honorary pallbearers, the sacramental dates, the second photograph, the long remembrance. Cut last: the name, the dates, the order of service, and where to go afterwards. Those four things are the program. And if the parish keeps a standard worship aid in the office, using it is not giving up. It is the same liturgy, printed by someone who has done it a hundred times.