And folks wonder why my husband's Catholic parents are now attending a Unitarian church...

I have to say I'm really not surprised it's the Irish.

Tensions are rising in the church in general since Benedict ascended to the Papacy. He wanted to push for reform and no one seems to know what that means apart from putting the screws to people. At least, in practice.

That's one bishop's policy, rather than the entire Church, and there's nothing stopping people from having their own wake or memorial service with their own content outside the Church's auspices.

That Jazz music is The Devil!

It's an association where one person, or a small group of people make all of the decisions.

What if they opened the decision making to the members of their church....Holy CRAP!

Co-Operative Gaming is the Protestant Reformation of Traditional Catholic Game Mastering!

Sorry, that sort of just tumbled out. Should I now go nail my 95 Thesis to the Door at RPG.net?

I'd have to say, even though I'm not Catholic, that looks to be more like one parish's, or one bishop's policy, as opposed to whole Catholic church. Because I don't know of any priest here who would oppose music being played for a sendoff for the dead. ESPECIALLY if the player is a relative.

This sounds like one of the most understandable policies coming out of the Catholic Church, actually. A funeral is a religious ritual, and the whole point of *ritual* is that you don't deviate from the procedure. This doesn't just apply to religious organizations, but also to state bodies, like the military.
More broadly, the rigidity of religious mourning practices is meant to repress uncontrolled expression, to prevent the grieving from saying things in their grief they may regret
As for the Catholic Church losing market share, going against their brand's core values ("this is the church where we do things the hardcore traditional way") seems like a bad idea - people don't chose to be Catholics because they enjoy savory wafers.