THE QUESTION BOX

Just for fun—and some ongoing education—each week’s bulletin offers a question on our Catholic spirituality and tradition. Enjoy!

Question: One of the most devastating situations that a loved one, a family, or a community can be  forced to struggle through is the death of someone who has taken his or her own life.  Compounding the hurt, there continues to be confusion on the part of some Catholics as to the appropriateness of funeral rites and Christian burial for those who commit suicide.  What is the Church’s practice in such tragic situations?     

Answer:  Though we always fall short in our striving to live the Gospel, the Church urges us to imitate the message and example of our divine Teacher as fully as possible.  To be a Christian is to “put on Christ,” as St. Paul would say, to pattern our lives, our thinking, and our actions as closely as we can on those of Jesus.  This can be a huge challenge, especially when the behavior of others defies our ability to make sense of things.   Even so, the example of Jesus clearly urges us to a level of compassion and forgiveness that may require us to let go of our need to understand, and simply trust that God is working his purpose out.

The gift of life is the greatest and most fundamental treasure God has given us, one that no person has the right to destroy.  In an instance of suicide, however, it is obvious that all manner of psychological and emotional factors have almost always come into play.  We can never know the mind or heart of another human being completely, and while we may find a person’s choice to take their own life incomprehensible—unforgiveable—we are also forced to acknowledge that the innermost center of each person remains a mystery which only God can penetrate.

The Church, then, in imitation of her Lord, does all she can to extend the forgiveness of Christ to all—including those who behave in the most shocking and destructive of ways.  There is no question that for long centuries, it was the practice of the Church to disallow Catholic funeral rites and burial to those who had taken their own lives.  This stance changed radically, with the growing contribution of the psychological sciences to our understanding of human behavior, and the mitigating internal factors that are so often at work. The Catechism of the Catholic Church states, “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.  The Church prays for persons who have taken their own lives” (# 2283). The prayer we offer for those who have died by their own hand includes the full range of rites of Christian burial, including the funeral Mass, and interment in a Catholic cemetery.  In fact, the Order of Christian Funerals includes prayers specifically composed for such situations.  As in all things, our challenge in facing the painful reality of suicide is to “put on the mind of Christ,” and to entrust anyone who would make such a choice to the hands of a God who is Mercy itself.