Responding to Suicide

This week a priest describes how being confronted by the self-inflicted death of a friend led him to a new understanding of suicide.

 

Suicide remains widely misunderstood, with perceptions still dominated by the awful cliche of it being an act of selfish cowardice and an out-dated perception that the victims of suicide are precluded from God’s mercy and salvation.

We can draw from both psychology and Church teachings in challenging these notions.

Most suicides are the culmination of despair to a point where one’s pain exceeds one’s means of dealing with it. Suicide very rarely is a question of free choice.

Almost every suicide has its source in clinical depression a mental condition often compared to cancer or extreme topical anguish which denies all hope.

Clinical depression can be triggered by events or may appear spontaneously as a result of neuro-chemical imbalances, or often an aggregation of both.

It can be treated, but many suffering from depression do not seek treatment. Some are unaware that their melancholy may have a diagnosable and treatable cause; others are fearful of the stigma attached to mental conditions, and never seek help.

As long as a stigma remains attached to mental conditions, society contributes to the incidence of suicide. It is therefore necessary that this prejudice be diminished and public awareness of mental conditions be expanded.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church (2280-3) teaches that objectively suicide is a sin in accordance with the fifth commandment: We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for [God’s] honour and the salvation of our souls. We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of (para 2280). Moreover, suicide has an effect on those left behind, and therefore offends love of neighbour.

But the Catechism also provides a pastoral application when it proceeds to attach the necessary caveat: Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.

The Church teaches that salvation is still possible for those who have committed suicide. We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. By ways known to him alone, God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance.

Indeed, a loving and merciful God surely would not exclude an anguished soul from his embrace.

In that light, a priest should not refuse a funeral of a Catholic who has committed suicide, nor use the occasion of a funeral to pre-empt God’s judgment.

The primary pastoral concern must be with the bereaved, who might already struggle not only with the natural grief that accompanies death, but also with a range of emotion that could include self-recrimination, a sense of betrayal, fear of stigmatisation and the severe distress of contemplating their loved one’s anguish.

Their trauma requires a sensitive response. They must not be confronted with cruel or theologically incomplete statements about the state of the deceased’s soul. Indeed, making such pronouncements offends charity and pre-empts God’s mercy, and might therefore be an occasion of sin.

When a suicide occurs, pastors and community must offer a prayerful response for the repose of the deceased’s soul and for the healing of those who have been left behind.

And as we prepare to observe the feast of All Souls, we might include in our prayers especially all the departed who lost their lives to suicide, and in particular those who were denied a Christian funeral because of the biases of their time.

The Church emphasises its opposition to assisted suicide by those suffering physical agony, but has few programmes in place to help those suffering mental anguish.

More needs to be done to offer pastoral care to those who are suffering depression and their families, and to those who are affected when a suicide occurs.

Some priests have already taken the initiative in doing so where they can. Their apostolate needs to be supported, formalised and extended to all of God’s People in need.