Posted on 02/26/2011 8:53:21 PM PST by Salvation
For Christians, this teaching takes on even greater depth because our Lord entered this world and our own human condition. Our Lord knew the joy and pain, success and failure, pleasure and suffering, happiness and sorrow that come in this life; yet, He also showed us how to live this life in the love of God and trusting in His will. Moreover, Jesus suffered, died, and rose to free us from sin and give us the promise of everlasting life. Through our baptism, we share a new life in the Lord. St. Paul reminds us, "You have been purchased, and at a price. So glorify God in your body" (I Corinthians 6:20).
Therefore, we must be mindful that the preservation of our life — body and soul — is not something discretionary but obligatory. We must preserve and nourish both our physical and spiritual life. The Catechism asserts, "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" (#2280).
With this foundation in mind, we can see why suicide has traditionally be considered a gravely wrong moral action, i.e. a mortal sin. Our Holy Father affirmed this position in his encyclical Evangelium Vitae (#66). (Please note that suicide is distinguished from the sacrifice of one's life for God or another, as in the cases of martyrdom, or of offering one's life or risking it to save another person.)
The intentional taking of one's own life is wrong for several reasons: First, in the most basic sense, each human being naturally seeks to his preserve life. To take our own life defies our natural instinct to live.
Second, suicide violates a genuine love for oneself and one's neighbor-- family, friends, neighbors, and even acquaintances. Other people need us and depend upon us in ways we may not even know. When I as a priest have had to comfort the family of a suicide victim, I hope that the person somehow realizes how much he really was loved and needed. I also feel sad that this poor troubled person faced something so seemingly unbearable, insurmountable, or agonizing that he chose to withdraw from the love of God and others, and kill himself.
Finally, suicide defies the love we owe God. Sure, we all face the tough times, hardships, and sufferings. However, we are called to place ourselves in the hands of God who will never abandon us, but see us safely through this life. The words of the "Our Father" — "thy will be done" — must be real for us. To commit suicide is to reject His "lordship" in our life.
Therefore, objectively, suicide is a mortal sin. (Moreover, to help someone commit suicide is also a mortal sin.) Here though we must remember that for a sin to be mortal and cost someone salvation, the objective action (in this case the taking of one's own life) must be grave or serious matter; the person must have an informed intellect (know that this is wrong); and the person must give full consent of the will (intend to commit this action). In the case of suicide, a person may not have given full consent of the will. Fear, force, ignorance, habit, passion, and psychological problems can impede the exercise of the will so that a person may not be fully responsible or even responsible at all for an action. Here again the Catechism states, "Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide" (#2282). This qualification does not make suicide a right action in any circumstance; however, it does make us realize that the person may not be totally culpable for the action because of various circumstances or personal conditions.
Only God can read the depths of our soul. Only He knows how much we love Him and how responsible we are for our actions. We leave the judgment then to Him alone. The Catechism offers words of great hope: "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). Therefore, we do offer the Mass for the repose of the soul of a suicide victim, invoking God's tender love and mercy, and His healing grace for the grieving loved ones.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENT
Saunders, Rev. William. "The Sin of Suicide ." Arlington Catholic Herald.
This article is reprinted with permission from Arlington Catholic Herald.
And yet he makes the point that such pain or lowered insight reduces the culpability of the suicide.
There are cases where it may not be a mortal sin to commit suicide. It would still be sinful to some degree, and it would always be objectively wrong, but the suicide is not finally rejecting God.
For instance: a low-insight manic-depressive who leaves himself under the wheel of a truck is not finally rejecting God.
But imagine some prussian pessimist in the 1920s: swallowing cyanide in despair and pride. Such a man would have been finally rejecting God. A very terrible thing. The most terrible thing that can be imagined.
Good question. I'm afraid the only proper answer is through doctrinal study in His Word to understand His Plan for every believer.
There definitely are strong theological positions which assert condemnation for those who commit suicide. There also are other theological arguments asserting once saved, always saved, and the believer who commits suicide will still have eternal life, but not all the crowns which had been predestined for him/her.
I've found that by placing faith on Christ, being occupied with what He did on the Cross, manifests a true love for all mankind and obedience to the Sovereignty and Will of God the Father.
Rather than pity, compassion, or sharing the thinking processes of the person with suicidal tendencies, a far more loving and truthful approach is to focus on what God Provides and what the Cross is all about.
Those who focus upon themselves, will also be tempted to identify others who don't share their thinking, as being equally arrogant as themselves, but until one places God as the object of their thinking, they never will escape their attempts to counterfeit anything other than God as the object of their thinking.
Fear of death will not prevent dying, but it may prevent living.
The first mention of Purgatory in the Bible is in 2 Maccabees 12:46: “Thus he made atonement for the dead that they might be freed from sin.”
In Matthew 5:26 Christ is condemning sin and speaks of liberation only after expiation. “Amen, I say to you, you will not be released until you have paid the last penny.”
Also: 1 Corinthians 3:15: “If it is burned up, he will suffer loss; he himself will be saved, but only as one escaping through the flames.”
Hope this is helpful.
And science has come so far in the past fifty years in understanding the brain. Truly amazing. So many wise comments on this thread.
Yes , I thought so too.
One of the better approaches I’ve found regarding questions on suicide is to reframe the question away from the “wrong-thinking” of the person with suicidal tendencies.
The reason they are suicidal is that they have already gone down the wrong path in their thinking, so the last thing one wants to do is join them in that quagmire.
God imputes life to the soul.
Nothing else will separate that life from the soul, INCLUDING suicide.
Thinking that one’s self-consciousness will be relieved of torment by suicide is false and self-deceptive.
The person needs to discern between the body, the mind, the soul, the source of their thoughts, and relationship of volition, all with respect to how God made them.
The very fact we have a life imputed to our soul manifests God has a Plan for our life. In order to understand the purpose and direction intended for our life, one first has to approach God by His standards to learn what He has provided for us.
There is nothing wrong is using the amenities of science, medicine, and technology to understand how our brain, bodies, and environment might effect our thinking, mind, and perceptions. There are, though, eternal consequences for our volition and behavior influenced from our thinking. Ignoring God will not solve problems of soulish torment, but may increase them.
BTW, good article.
If you know off-hand, Could you tell me what book/verses in the Bible talks about the “immaculate conception” of Mary, I’ve always been curious. Thanks!
I invite Catholics to break themselves away from posting anything from sources that mention Vatican II or post Vatican II writings, for then, they will discover the CLEAR REAL teachings of the Church.
"Why God would allow these "ambiguities" to occur in Vatican II. (and other magisterial documents)?
"Considering all that I have said thus far, especially concerning the ulterior motives of the liberal prelates and their virtual hijacking of Vatican II, I think Scripture has an answer as to why God would allow these "ambiguities" to occur. In short, there is an interesting working principle in Scripture. As a punishment for your sin, God will allow you to pursue, and be condemned by, what you sinfully desire. This is what I believe happened at Vatican II. The progressivist bishops and theologians sought for a way to push their heterodox ideas into the Church, so God allowed them to do so, as a witness and judgment against them. He would allow the Council to have its "ambiguities" so that those who would interpret them contrary to nineteen centuries of established Catholic dogma, would lead themselves into sin, and ultimately into God's judgment. Unfortunately, as is always the case, the sheep suffer for what the shepherds do wrong, and as a result, we have all been wandering in the spiritual desert of liberal theology for the past 40 years." (Article from Catholic Family News, Feb 2003, by Robert Sungenis)(1)
(1) In fact, the bad shepherds may be a chastisement for the sins of the sheep. Saint John Eudes, basing his words on Sacred Scripture, says that when God wants to punish his people, he sends them bad priests. See The Priest, His Dignity and Obligations, by Saint John Eudes, Chapter 2, "Qualities of a Holy Priest". (New York: P.J. Kenedy and Sons, 1947).
The ambiguity in Vatican II is a punishment from God, the ambiguity is a snare, a siren song, to RUN AWAY FROM! My best advice to the common layman is: Do not seek any answers about the Faith from Vatican II or any theologians/sources that refers exclusively to it. Rat poison is 99% nutritious grain.
Take it for what you want but I knew I was going to loose her. I was being prepared for it months before while I was driving a rig and gone all but 4 days a month. An overwhelming feeling of something is not right at home. Not the kind like the car was tore up the kind like something bad is wrong. I end up quiting the job and took a maintenance job at a nursing home. Within two months she was gone. Two months later I'd gone back to work and taken a transfer because another facility needed a HVAC/Electrician so I took the offer.
I met a nurse aid there whom I would start dating. This is the person I'm married too now. I don't believe our prayers are always answered the way we would like. Sometimes down the road a person can look back and see that no was a good answer in the long run.
My dad has been fighting cancer for about 9 years when they told him he had about three years left. He's now on his third different type of Chemo, taking Morphine, and Hydrocodone for pain. The current round is a just recently approved drug. But he's in his 80's.
When I worked in the nursing homes we had patients we'd pray would not be there the next day because of the pain they were experiencing. A lot of them who looked healthy and had no real medical problems except fr age would surprise you though. You'd say see you tomorrow when you'd leave to clock out. They would say no I'm going home I won't be here. You come in the next day and their room was empty and you learn they had died that night. I've often wondered how they knew?
Everything must die to be reborn and even nature shows it. A tomato left alone will bloom and produce fruit. The fruit contains seed. If left alone the tomato falls to the ground and in time the plant dies. The seed lays in the ground and in the spring a plant springs up. So it is with mankind. The only way we can live is we first must die when that season comes.
Somethings just don't have easy answers. My sibling lost a spouse right before Christmas. My sibling has some serious mental problems that are compounded by several strokes. The one who died was the bread winner and like me a caregiver as well. It was an unexpected unknown heart issue. The spouse said see you after work and died that day at work. That outcome remains to be seen. Some positives is a shrink was fired and other doctors consulted. The shrink was incompetent. I knew it before anyone because that shrink had treated me once. But I can see two lives it changed for the better. Adversity is a refining tool if a person allows it.
One thing I've learned is nothing remains the same in our lives. Changes come and time usually heals most hurts & moods as long as you aren't hit too many times at once. Clinical depression I realize is not that though. My wifes been in therapy ten years and it's helped her.
The odds are I'll be going through one familiar pain again before I leave this world. Simply meaning the likelihood of being a widower again. That's just the reality of the circumstance. Twenty six years together me and her have been very blessed. Some may not look at it in that way though. Some person in the situation would dwell on what happened and let it take over their lives and rob them of happiness.
The hardest thing I’ve had to do in life is to thank the Lord for such a loss.
As the story goes, as the woman approached the confessional, she could see Saint Jean-Marie Vianney talking to the Virgin Mary...
She was distraught over the fact that her husband committed suicide, and therefore went straight to hell.
She spoke to Saint Jean-Marie Vianney about her grief. But the saint-to-be replied:
"When your husband jumped off the bridge, he made a perfect act of contrition before he hit the water. Your husband is in purgatory."
This is not to make suicide to seem like a trivial sin. But sometimes in God's mercy, people are given a second chance.
Sometimes there are other factors in the suicide that only God can see. In this case, the person may have regretted the act of suicide before doing, but might have thought it was "the only option".
God is the only one capable of seeing the whole picture.
The other example is King David in the Old Testament. Not only did have someone killed for his mistress (the mistress's husband), but King David committed adultery. Additionally, everyone probably realized the scandal that King David was involved: seduces a married woman, and then having her husband killed in battle.
Things are Black and White. But only God can see shades of gray...
In other words, it is not for us to judge, but only God.
And only God might make exceptions to serious sins and allow a soul to enter purgatory rather than go to hell...
Here late to this thread, but thought I’d pass on info about a group on facebook that prays for those who have committed or are in danger of committing suicide - It’s called Divine Mercy for Lost Souls, started by June Klins. (the term ‘lost’ means lost to the loved ones, not lost & in hell).
Prayers ongoing.
Excerpts from the 1907 Catholic Encyclopedia; ( http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/14326b.htm ) The teaching of the Catholic Church concerning the morality of suicide may be summarized as follows:
...God has reserved to himself direct dominion over life; He is the owner of its substance and He has given man only the serviceable dominion, the right of use, with the charge of protecting and preserving the substance, that is, life itself. Consequently suicide is an attempt against the dominion and right of ownership of the Creator. To this injustice is added a serious offense against the charity which man owes to himself, since by his act he deprives himself of the greatest good in his possession and the possibility of attaining his final end. Moreover, the sin may be aggravated by circumstances, such as failure in conjugal, paternal, or filial piety, failure in justice or charity, if by taking his life one eludes existing obligations of justice or acts of charity, which he could and should perform. That suicide is unlawful is the teaching of Holy Scripture and of the Church, which condemns the act as a most atrocious crime and, in hatred of the sin and to arouse the horror of its children, denies the suicide Christian burial. Moreover, suicide is directly opposed to the most powerful and invincible tendency of every creature and especially of man, the preservation of life. Finally, for a sane man deliberately to take his own life, he must, as a general rule, first have annihilated in himself all that he possessed of spiritual life, since suicide is in absolute contradiction to everything that the Christian religion teaches us as to the end and object of life and, except in cases of insanity, is usually the natural termination of a life of disorder, weakness, and cowardice.
..... The Frequency of Suicide and its Chief Causes
The plague of suicide belongs especially to the period of decadence of the civilized peoples of antiquity, Greeks, Romans, and Egyptians. The Christian Middle Ages were unacquainted with this morbid tendency, but it has reappeared at a more recent period, has developed constantly since the Renaissance, and at present has reached such an intensity among all civilized nations that it may be considered one of the special evils of our time.
This suicide rate obviously includes suicides attributable to mental illness, but we cannot accept the opinion of a large number of physicians, moralists, and jurists who, led into error by a false philosophy, lay it down as a general rule that suicide is always due to insanity, so great is the horror which this act inspires in every man of sane mind. The Church rejects this theory and, while admitting exceptions, considers that those unfortunates who, impelled by despair or anger, attempt their life often act through malice or culpable cowardice. In fact, despair and anger are not as a general thing movements of the soul which it is impossible to resist, especially if one does not neglect the helps offered by religion, confidence in God, belief in the immortality of the soul and in a future life of rewards and punishments.
Obviously, you've never experienced something like an intense panic attack.
I am so sorry- my prayers are with you. I lost a father-in-law and my ex (high school/college) boyfriend a couple of years apart. No-one knows the pain either faced the last couple of minutes, and I went through grieving with two sets of families (my former mother-in-law witnessed the death of her husband and will never be the same.) I hope you have gotten the support you need.
We can try our hardest to analyze everything and determine how God responds to our actions, but we can never really KNOW. Remember God sees and knows all things so I believe the end for anyone- suicide or not- is between them and God and it is not for us to know for sure what happens to those that commit suicide.
I agree that those that commit suicide do have inner demons that they cannot control. Things seem totally out of their control and they cannot see a way out of their issues. I had a suicide in my family over 30 years ago and it is not something that you can really ever deal with, because if you haven’t been in their shoes you can’t possibly understand. My prayers go out to you and all of the family and friends of the person that committed suicide in your family. I pray that you will all have the strength you will need to deal with this. Please keep close watch on those closest to that person, sometimes others see no way out for themselves when that happens in a family.
I am haunted by those pictures from the World Trade Center on 9-11 of people who jumped to their deaths rather than perish in the flames. Would they be considered suicides?
Sto Zvirat:
Limbo was never officially defined as Catholic Dogma. It was a srongly held theological position regarding the fate of unbaptized Children going back to the time of St. Augustine who was one its first proponents and thus since his time, it was a major theological opinion of the Church.
However, as the recent Catechism of the Catholic Church clearly states, the Church can’t definitively say anything about the fate of unbaptized Children as that was never really totally revealed by Christ. The Church thus trusts in the Mercy of God and prays for unbaptized children at the Liturgy [CCC 1261, see Link attached]
http://www.scborromeo.org/ccc/p2s2c1a1.htm#VI
Wow! Some story!
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