[Choose Ye This Day]

When suicide was considered a mortal sin in the Catholic Church...

It's not anymore? When and why did they "change" the rule?

[Coleus]

When suicide was considered a mortal sin in the Catholic Church...

It's not anymore? When and why did they "change" the rule?  >>>>

It was "changed" in 1983 when the new Catechism was approved.  The way a priest once explained it too me that in a split second before you are killed you may have changed your mind when it was too late, meaning the method by which you killed yourself couldn't be reversed in time; therefore, the intend was no longer there and you didn't sin.

2282 
If suicide is committed with the intention of setting an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary co-operation 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.

This is the old citation from the Baltimore Catechism:

Q. 1274. What sin is it to destroy one´s own life, or commit suicide, as this act is called?

A. It is a mortal sin to destroy one´s own life or commit suicide, as this act is called, and persons who willfully and knowingly commit such an act die in a state of mortal sin and are deprived of Christian burial. It is also wrong to expose one´s self unnecessarily to the danger of death by rash or foolhardy feats of daring.

Q. 1275. Is it ever lawful for any cause to deliberately and intentionally take away the life of an innocent person?

A. It is never lawful for any cause to deliberately and intentionally take away the life of an innocent person. Such deeds are always murder, and can never be excused for any reason, however important or necessary.

Q. 1276. Under what circumstances may human life be lawfully taken?

A. Human life may be lawfully taken:

1. (1) In self-defense, when we are unjustly attacked and have no other means of saving our own lives;
   
2. (2) In a just war, when the safety or rights of the nation require it;
   
3. (3) By the lawful execution of a criminal, fairly tried and found guilty of a crime punishable by death when the preservation of law and order and the good of the community require such execution.