Suicide not an ‘easy way out’

Statistics suggest that at least two-thirds of people with psychological problems will never seek therapy. Facing an inner torment, many of these people find refuge in suicide.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church proscribes suicide as a negation of the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. Our lives, the Catechism teaches, do not belong to us, but to God. We are mere stewards of life. When we kill ourselves (or, of course, others), we destroy what is God’s. The Catechism also counsels that suicide affects those left behind, and therefore offends love of neighbour.

But these interdicts do not mean that people who commit suicide are automatically excluded from God’s mercy and salvation. The Church is aware that a person on the verge of suicide is not likely at that point to contemplate the sinfulness of the act. So the Catechism recognises that the culpability of those who commit suicide can be diminished by grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture (2282).

Most suicides fulfil these criteria. They tend to be caused by unbearable pain, not the selfish easy way out of common misconception. The act of suicide itself therefore is not necessarily an obstacle to salvation. God understands.

Suicide – which the American columnist Fr Ron Rolheiser OMI calls the most misunderstood of all deaths usually occurs when one’s pain exceeds one’s means of dealing with it. For most of us, that condition is unimaginable. Suicide very rarely is a question of free choice.

The causes of suicide are compounded by the stigmatisation of the conditions that can drive people to thoughts of ending their lives. In cases of depression, absurd advice along the lines of having to snap out of it is entirely unhelpful. Especially clinical depression, which often is caused by chemical imbalances, requires professional intervention.

But many people who contemplate suicide will not seek help  professionally or from family or friends  because they feel unable to face up to the stigma of mental health issues (or of substance abuses, another frequent cause for suicide).

The incidence of clinical depression and other mental impairments continues to be trivialised instead of being seen as a serious but treatable conditions. This deters those affected by it from seeking help.

It is necessary that the stigma attached to mental health conditions is diminished, and that public awareness of the nature of depression is extended.

Those whose lives are made so unbearable that they might contemplate ending it need our on-going prayers. But more is needed structurally from the Church, which emphasises its opposition to euthanasia by those suffering physical agony, but has few programmes in place to help those in mental anguish.

The Church has the capacity to accomplish much good by running relevant programmes, as is already happening in some regions in the local Church.

Likewise, the spiritual counselling to those affected by suicide  family, friends, even colleagues  is left to pastors who are not always adequately equipped to deal with that nature of bereavement.

The Church’s pastoral ministries extend across many fields. There is a need for it to show its spiritual solidarity and practical concern with those suffering mental anguish, those who are suicidal, and those who are touched by suicide.