Dear Sisters and Brothers,

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Last weekend as we observed Suicide Healing and Remembrance Weekend in the Diocese of St. Cloud, I read Bishop Neary’s letter and spoke in the homily about how factors like trauma, stress, substance abuse, or mental illness can remove the moral culpability of the one who attempts or commits suicide. These real conditions affect the entire person – body, mind, and soul – and can overwhelm a person’s ability to cope, and so lead them to make a choice they would never have made if that condition did not exist. It is for this reason that we can have hope for the salvation of the soul of the person who died by suicide. God understands our brokenness and limitations, and does not hold our illnesses against us, and he never obligates what is impossible. As our omniscient and omnipotent Creator, he knows us better than we know ourselves. He is able to be a perfectly fair and just judge, taking into account all the circumstances of our lives. He is also loving and merciful, desiring to heal and forgive when we call out to Him. He is and always must be our hope for ourselves and our loved ones.

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That teaching on suicide is very important and necessary for us to hear, and I am grateful to the bishop for setting up the weekend as an opportunity to discuss it in our parishes. That teaching helps us to do our part to pray for and support those who suffer with mental illness or other factors without stigmatizing them or rejecting them as sinners. But I think it is also important to reiterate another part of Church teaching on suicide: suicide is the unjust taking of a human life. It is always grave matter, and if done with full knowledge and deliberate and complete consent it would be a mortal sin. A mortal sin separates us from the grace of God. It removes the branch from the vine of God, and without that divine life flowing to it, the branch will dry out and die and be thrown to be burned in the fire (cf. John 15:2-6). A person who dies with unrepentant mortal sin on the soul will be subject to the eternity of hell (cf. CCC 1861). Obviously, we are incapable of judging whether a person had full knowledge or complete consent to the action, or whether there were factors that entirely prevented consent from occurring – God alone can do that. But we can say that because suicide is grave matter, anyone who commits suicide is placing their soul in serious danger. They are, in effect, betting the fate of their immortal soul on how full their consent was to the act – and that is a dangerous game.

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I know to some people this may seem harsh, but it is given by the Church from a place of love and as a means to protect life. I personally have been told by multiple people who were experiencing trauma or severe depression that they were extremely close to ending their own lives. And they each said the only thing that stopped them from killing themselves was the fact that it might be a mortal sin and that they might be separated from God for eternity. It was that thought that caused them to put down the gun or put away the pills. And rather than be angry with the Church for its teaching, they are extremely grateful to her for it because it saved their lives. Please remember this in addition to God’s mercy, because if the only thing people hear is that God will forgive, then those with mental illness might be more likely – not less – to actually carry out their suicide. And that would be a tragedy with which none of us should want to live.

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Peace in Christ,

Father Timothy