The Catechism in a Year (with Fr. Mike Schmitz) - Day 297: The Cross of Suicide (2024)

Episode Date: October 23, 2024

"The cross of suicide is a violation of the fifth commandment that, tragically, many of us have been impacted by in our world today. Fr. Mike explains that we are stewards of the life that God has entrusted to us, not owners. Our lives are precious gifts, and we have a responsibility to care for them. He also emphasizes that we should not lose hope for the eternal salvation of those who take their own lives. Today’s readings are Catechism paragraphs 2280-2283. Listener discretion advised. This episode contains references to suicide. If you or someone you know is struggling with suicidal thoughts, please contact someone you can trust and/or contact the Suicide & Crisis Lifeline at 988 (available 24 hours everyday). You are loved, you are beautiful, and you are absolutely irreplaceable." This episode has been found to be in conformity with the Catechism by the Institute on the Catechism, under the Subcommittee on the Catechism, USCCB. For the complete reading plan, visit ascensionpress.com/ciy Please note: The Catechism of the Catholic Church contains adult themes that may not be suitable for children - parental discretion is advised.

Hi, my name is Father Mike Schmitz and you're listening to the Catechism in a Year podcast where we encounter God's plan of sheer goodness for us, revealed in scripture and passed down through the tradition of the Catholic faith. The Catechism in a Year is brought to you by Ascension. In 365 days, we'll read through the Catechism of the Catholic Church, discovering our identity and God's family as we journey together toward our heavenly home. This is day 297, the last number on my checklist of the Catechism in the Year Reading Plan. We're reading paragraphs 2280 through 2283.

As always, I'm using the Ascension edition of the Catechism, which includes the Foundations of Faith approach. You can follow along with any recent version of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. You can also download your own Catechism in your reading plan by visiting ascensionpress.com slash C-I-Y. And lastly, you can click follow or subscribe in your podcast app for daily updates and daily notifications. Today is day 297.

As I said, it is on my sheet, at least my Catechism in your reading plan. It is the last day. And so that means we have, I think, two full sheets left. Does that sound familiar to anyone here? I think so. And we're reading paragraphs 2280, 2283. Yesterday, I keep saying this, but yesterday we talked about euthanasia. The day before, abortion. Today we're talking

about suicide. Again, talking about very serious things and the recognition that all of our lives have been, well, maybe all of our lives, but most of our lives have been marked by or touched by, affected by suicide. And so we're really gonna hear today, what does the church officially teach with regard to taking one's own life? It is a serious sin. It is a grave sin.

And yet, at the same time, not yet, there's no yet. At the same time, the church continues to have compassion. The church has hope. The church prays for all of those who take their own lives. We're going to talk about that today. So as we prepare ourselves to launch into these four paragraphs, let us first launch into the Lord, into the Father's heart and call upon the name of Jesus Christ. We pray, Father in heaven, we give you praise and glory and thank you. We thank you for your Son Jesus. We thank you for your Holy Spirit that you have poured out into our hearts,

that we can call you Abba Father. We thank you for making us your children through baptism in the power of the Holy Spirit, through faith. We ask that you please, regardless of where we are right now, be with us now. Be with us in this moment.

Be with us as we look at this serious and grave issue of suicide. We ask that you please protect our hearts, especially those hearts that are grieving. Lord God, the hearts that are grieving, we ask that you please protect them in a unique way, strengthen them in a unique way and heal them. Heal all of our hearts that have been wounded by abortion two days ago, euthanasia yesterday and today's suicide. We ask that you please give us hearts of compassion, hearts of truth, hearts that are courageous

in being committed to living out your will in all things. Jesus, be with us now. And it's in your name that we ask all these things. In the name of the Father, in the name of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit, amen. It is day 297, we areraphs 2280-2283. Suicide. Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him.

It is God who remains the sovereign Master of life. We are obliged to accept life gratefully and preserve it for His honor 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. Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with

family, nation, and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God. If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary cooperation in suicide is contrary to the moral law. Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing 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.

The church prays for persons who have taken their own lives. Alright, there we have it, these four paragraphs, paragraph 2280 to 2283. We're going to break this down, and it's very important for us to break this down, because each sentence, essentially, each of these sentences in each one of these four paragraphs is telling us something very critical. So the start of the very beginning paragraph 2280 Everyone is responsible for his life before God who has given it to him. Remember we talked about this before When you have a real relationship there are real rights, but there are also real responsibilities

And so we are responsible for our life It is God though who remains the sovereign master of life and we're obliged to accept life Gratefully and preserve it for his honor and salvation of our souls and this in this key word We are stewards. We are stewards of the life. God is entrusted to us We're not owners and so this recognize that's my life and that's that's isn't that a common thing. Well, it's my life Who what does it matter? It's my life. Well, the reality of course is that you and I are both stewards of our lives We're not the owners of our lives. And so it's not ours to dispose of.

You know, how many times have you and I been in a situation where someone, I mean, I've been in this situation many times, where I've been invited to counsel someone who is in this place of either being tempted to end their life or are planning to end their life Of course in my position when if someone is planning to end their own life They're involved in suicidal ideation then one of my roles one of the many roles that I'll take is to contact and health professional And this is immediately important so important So it is not on if you find yourself in this place where you're the person offering counsel to someone to do that alone is

I think is a grave mistake to offer that that help alone. I think is is Is not as good as connecting them with people who can help beyond you I think that's that's one of the first lessons that I ever learned when talking with people who are tempted toward committing suicide or planning on committing suicide is like, okay, if you're in a place of danger now, then we're gonna go to the hospital. And that's the thing is like, oftentimes if you're a person filled with compassion,

if you're a person that cares about people, then someone who may be in this place, right? Someone who may be in this place of wrestling with whatever struggle they're in the midst of and reveals to you that they are tempted to commit suicide or they're planning on committing suicide that the thing I always bring up is okay if this is the case right now that if you're in a place of danger then what we're gonna do is especially if they've called like I'm not in their presence in that exact

moment one of the things that in order to make sure that they are safe and that we're doing whatever we can whatever I can to help them is I'll say if you're in a place of danger right now, then we'll stay on the phone. I'm going to come to you and we're going to go to the hospital because you know, just talking about it sometimes when someone's in that place, just talking about it sometimes is not enough. And so I just want to encourage anyone. This is, that's something that,

that's my policy is if I'm ever talking to someone in this moment, so, okay, you're in a place of danger. If you are, we're going to someone in this moment so okay you're a place of danger if you are we're going to the hospital if you're not in a place of danger then we can continue talking or we can talk later depending on you know if it's the middle of the night or if it's in a in a very not helpful time then does that make sense I just I think it's helpful especially again if you're someone who has a lot of compassion you have a lot of care and and you want to do whatever you can to help someone. I think sometimes to have some boundaries is very, very helpful for you and it's also

very helpful for the person that you're trying to help to be able to say, this is a place of danger, time of danger, then we're going to do something about it, we're going to act on this and get you help now. If you're not in a time of danger, then I might need to put some boundaries on this moment. Hopefully that helps, that's just kind of one of the things that I've learned. But going back to this place of saying, we are stewards not owners of the life

God's entrusted to us. It's my life, what do you care? Well, the reality of course, is that here's paragraph two to eight one. Not only does suicide contradict the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his own life, but it's also not only contrary to the just love of self, it likewise offends love of neighbor. So the idea of it's my life, what do you care? Like, oh,

actually, we as we've said many times, we belong to each other. It unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. This is one of the things that I don't want to sound like I'm rushing through this, but I've talked to many family members of people who have committed suicide, who have taken their own lives. And in the midst of their grief, one of the, one of the emotions they have to process, not always, but often is anger. There's, there's grief, course, of how they were in pain

for leading up to this, or the sadness of having lost this family member, this friend, this person that they loved. But another part of this is anger. That sense of, okay, yeah, you've done this to yourself, but you've also done this to us. And that's real. And so sometimes a lot of those who are the survivors of those

who have committed suicide, they have to reconcile the fact that it's okay for me to also have some anger. That's natural for me to also have some anger, especially if you're someone who like, no, we were helping you or someone like, why didn't you tell us that you needed help or whatever that kind of thing is. The fact is, if I were to say, if any person were to say, it's my life,

what does it matter to you? Well, the reality is it matters to a lot of people. And maybe not even a lot of people, maybe it just matters to one person. Maybe it just matters to a couple of people. That we know this, our lives don't have to matter to thousands in order to matter, that your life matters. And in addition, one of the reasons why the church

in the past has had some pretty stringent laws or basically some disciplines surrounding what do you do with those who have committed suicide is because we recognize the reality of, what's maybe recently come to be known as social contagion. So, and this is again, I don't mean to be kind of scattershot over this, but the reality is we belong to each other.

And there's such a thing as social contagion, right? That I remember reading an article years ago about a string of islands, and I think it's in the South Pacific. And what they found was occasionally, they would have a young person it was typically young person who would take their own life and Then they would have a rash of suicides that follow this and we can see how this could happen

And it often does happen in our small towns or in our communities where what is it? here's this person that's taking their own life and We give them a lot of attention because we say oh, this is this person and how tragic and it is tragic. And what happens that sparks with sparks, sparks someone else to say, well, this was someone else took the step and they got attention. Someone else took this step and, and you know, that's an option for me. There is a social contagion component to this. And I, I think here's my, I'm just proposing this. I'm just, this is my opinion. I want, I want is my it's not even my opinion I wonder if this isn't the case

I wonder if for years the church understood that and because of that for years the church had a okay when it comes to those who have committed suicide we are going to not have funeral rights for them when someone's committed suicide they may not not be buried within the cemetery that's reserved for those who are baptized. It could be the case that the church is just trying, again, not trying to punish someone unduly or not trying to add to grief, but because the church has understands the nature of, again, this term social contagion. Does that make sense? Because we have to balance these, this reality, right? That I am a steward of my own life.

But also, in taking my own life, I offend the love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation, and other human societies. So my neighbor, my family, the people who love me, they might feel anger at me if I've taken this step. Also, I'm giving bad witness. In fact, that's one of the reasons why it says in paragraph 20 to 82 that if suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example especially to the young takes on the gravity of scandal because again we belong to each other and so this this

is so important for us to understand that suicide is always going to be wrong it's always going to be a grave sin. At the same time paragraph 2282 notes this and this is I think this is part of the wisdom of the church here. The wisdom of the church says that grave psychological disturbances, anguish or grave fear of hardship, suffering or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide. So mental illness can diminish the responsibility of one committing suicide. I think about how many times gosh gosh, I mean, think back at 2001 on September 11th, and we have the twin towers and here's this burning building.

And people realize there's no escape. And so they jumped out of the burning building. We wouldn't say, well, they committed suicide. They should have just stayed and let the flames engulf them. That's not the case. This sense of here is great pain they're going through. The only way out is outside this window. So the recognition here is the church is saying, okay, in all of this, we need to understand that there are, there's mental illness that can diminish one's responsibility or culpability,

right? There's anguish, great fear of hardship, suffering or torture. Other times you think about, ah man, someone who has a cyanide capsule, right? Go back to some of those kind of spy stories where here's a person in the midst of torture might find themselves in a place where they commit suicide. That's not a good, keep this in mind.

That's not a good, it's still a moral evil. But the church is understanding that, remember, remember, when it comes to, for a sin to be mortal, I have to ask to be grave matter, so that in this case that's there. I have to have full knowledge and full consent of the will. It makes sense to recognize that many people,

I don't know about all people, I have no idea what percentage there is, but many people would not have full consent of the will if they're being driven by mental illness or they're being driven by grave fear of hardship suffering or torture That can get can diminish it doesn't say it does but it can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide because of this We must not miss with paragraph 2283. We should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives So we let's say that again

Because we know this because there are certain things that can diminish one's culpability, it's still a grave evil, right, still a sin. But because there are real things that can diminish one's culpability, we should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives. So here, we know people, we're related to people who have taken their own lives.

Well, can I have hope for them? The church says, yes, we should own lives Well, can I have hope for them? The church says yes We should not despair meaning we should have hope by ways known to him alone God can provide the opportunity for salutary repentance the church praise her persons who have taken their own lives now This isn't just a novel invention, right? This isn't just a recent thing with the understanding of mental illness now in our modern day This goes all the way back to actually, there was a quote I remember from St. Augustine. St. Augustine was asked about this at some point

or he taught about this at some point. And one of the things he said about when it comes to praying for those who have taken their own lives is that we should not despair of the eternal salvation because by ways known to God alone, God can provide the opportunity for repentance. He said that something like this, we don't know what happens between the bridge and the water.

Why do we pray for them? He goes, we don't know what happens between the bridge and the water. Not only do we not know what kind of aspects could reduce culpability of the person committing suicide, we also don't know the situation. In fact, it's ironic or fitting maybe, providential maybe, that Augustine used that phrase,

we don't know what happened between the bridge and the water because I remember reading about this years ago that the Golden Gate Bridge is, I think maybe still, maybe not still anymore, the number one place for death in the United States because of the number of people who commit suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. There are some stories though of people who have attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge. There are some stories though of people who have attempted suicide by jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge or by other jumping off of other high bridges. In one story in particular I remember reading about a person who said the moment they

let go of the railing, the moment they took that step, they wished they had not. The moment they took that step and were falling from the railing to the water. They began praying They prayed the entire fall from the bridge to the water. God, please forgive me. God, please let me live that was salutary repentance now that when they hit the water they This person in particular remember broke their pelvis broke their back broke a number of other bones But they survived and they were lived to tell that story about the moment they let go of the bridge they wished they had not. And this is one of those situations as well for those who have made it through mental illness, those who have made it through incredible depression or anxiety or

whatever those those factors on their lives or even just despair, those people who are facing incredible challenges who are saying I can't see a way out of this. And in that moment because of that they're tempted to take their own lives. I've talked to so many people, not only talk to people, but have read books about people who have said, I could never imagine that five years later, I'm so grateful I didn't take my life. I can't, I couldn't imagine that actually this I'm stuck and there's no way forward, but there was a way forward and I wasn't completely stuck.

Yes, there was a challenge and yes, there's no way forward, but there was a way forward and I wasn't completely stuck. Yes, there was a challenge and yes, there was difficulty and yes, mental illness is real and should be treated. We wanna, just like we would go to the doctor for a broken leg or for cancer or for a cough. I don't know if you go to doctors for cough, but you know what I'm saying. We would go to a mental health professional

to help us when it comes to Any kind of mental illness that we know this as Christians there should be no stigma whatsoever About mental illness just like hopefully there's no stigma whatsoever when it comes to physical illness We know that human beings body mind soul spirit and all of those can be wounded And so why not go to someone who can care for us in our woundedness? So, but there are so many people who find themselves in a moment where they say, I was so tempted to commit suicide. I'm so grateful I didn't because at that moment I thought there's no way I could ever make it past this and looking back five years later, ten years later, a lifetime later, saying I am so grateful that I didn't do it.

And that's you. You know, because I know there are people who are so tempted. And probably people who are listening to us. Definitely people related to those who are listening to us right now. Listen, part of this community, of this podcast, of the Catechism in the Year. And they are tempted and don't see a way forward but the recognition is God has given you a future and it may be a challenge obviously all of us face different challenges but you don't have to face it alone you don't

have to face these challenges alone if you yourself, this is the last thing, whether you find yourself as someone who's you're in the midst of facing this temptation and just we're praying for you right now, or if you find yourself grieving over the loss of someone you loved who had taken their own lives, we're praying for you right now and we're praying for them. As it says the very last line in paragraph 2283, the church prays for persons who have taken their own lives And we wouldn't pray for them if we didn't think those prayers could help So we haven't given up hope

We have not given up hope and we never will If you're struggling or praying for you. Don't give up hope. If you're grieving, maybe even grief tinged with anger, we're praying for you. Don't give up hope. And if you find yourself in a place where I can't see any way forward, we're praying for you. Don't give up hope.

You may feel incredibly alone, but you're not alone. We're praying for each other. I'm praying for you and please pray for me. My name is Father Mike. I cannot wait to see you tomorrow. God bless.