Hi, my name's Father Mike Schmitz and this is Ascension Presents.
Today's topic is really, is actually incredibly serious.
I want to talk about the
questions of what happens when someone takes their own life?
What is it that the Church teaches about those who commit suicide?
Is it, they're lost to God forever? Is it, they automatically go to hell? Or what is it?
And the thing is I really want to be sensitive to this question
because I imagine in this day and age, there probably isn't one person who is watching this
who hasn't been touched by either the temptation to commit suicide, has maybe even tried themselves,
or knows someone who has committed suicide.
I mean, it's almost all of us are affected by this.
So what does the Church teach with regard to suicide?
Well, the first thing is that—
In the beginning of the day, middle the day, end of the day,
our lives are not our own, right, that we belong to another.
Whether you believe in God or not, I mean there was a Creator, he exists
and so our lives are not merely our lives, that we're responsible to another.
We answer to another.
Because of that my life is not my own and it's not mine to take
and at the end of the day, that's it.
And so I may not take an innocent human life,
whether that be someone else's innocent human life or my own innocent human life.
And so Scripture and the Church teach that taking your own life, one's own life is a grave sin.
So here's the thing about grave sin.
If I know something is a grave sin and I freely choose to do it anyways
and I die in that state, then that's separation from God, right,
that's what we call hell. I don't want him, I don't want his will.
I don't want to belong to him and so I've turned away from him.
So if I die in that state, then, yes, hell is the consequence.
Now here's the thing when it comes to suicide
is yes, I have to knowingly and freely choose to do this evil thing of taking my own life,
an innocent human being's life because you're innocent, right?
But the interesting thing is we don't know that information.
We don't know if a person did this knowingly.
So if you have a friend, a family member, someone you know who took their own life,
we don't know if they knew that this was gravely evil.
Second thing, we don't know if they were free.
Virtually every article that I've ever read on suicide
talk about how the vast majority of people who take their own lives
are suffering from some kind of mental illness:
they have depression, they have anxiety, they have bipolar,
some kind of thing that has led them to this place of desperation,
led them to this place where they might actually not be free
to say "yes" or to say "no" in complete freedom.
Now, here's the thing. Caveat. Little side point—
If you experience mental illness, like depression, anxiety, bipolar, whatever that thing is,
number one, there's nothing to be ashamed of.
I just don't understand how in our current context, right,
we know stuff about the brain, we know stuff on neuroscience,
we know stuff about hormones that affect us and how our past can affect us,
there is nothing to be ashamed of if you experience depression, anxiety, bipolar, any kind of mental illness.
Number two, if you do experience this, almost every article again
that talked about how mental illness— those who commit suicide are often affected by mental illness,
virtually every article also said that almost every one of those suicides could have been prevented
if those people have gotten the right kind of help.
So if that's you, if you experience any kind of mental illness,
please A) do not be ashamed but B) please get help
because there's hope. I mean truly.
Now, you could say, "Well, I went to a counselor. I went to a therapist and it didn't help me at all."
Well—
I'll just say this gently.
If you or I went to a doctor to fix our broken leg and they couldn't help us,
we wouldn't say, "Well, I guess doctoring doesn't work."
We'd go to a different doctor. We'd go to a different person.
We would seek out help because not every doctor is going to be perfect
just like not every priest is perfect and not every person is perfect.
So please those two things if you have mental illness:
do not be ashamed of this and number two please get help.
Almost—I would say, every person who's committed suicide could have been helped.
We don't know what's going on inside, right?
We don't know if the person who committed suicide knowingly did this or freely did this.
In fact, the Catechism says there are certain mitigating factors:
One being mental illness.
Another being fear of torture, under duress, these kind of stressors
that could be on a person's life that could mitigate their freedom
and therefore, mitigate what we call—the big word is—culpability,
like their own being at fault for this kind of thing.
As an example, St. Augustine, I think it was, back in the fourth century, fifth century,
he once said this. He said, "We don't know what happened between the bridge and the water."
Like a person could have jumped and then repented.
They could have jumped and said, "I'm sorry."
In fact, I came across a story.
The Golden Gate Bridge is, I think, the second most location of suicides in the United States,
maybe even in the world.
There was a story of a man who was 28 years old and he had already had one suicide attempt.
He went to the Golden Gate Bridge and he jumped
and he said this, he said, "The moment," he said, "I can still see my hands leaving the rail
and in that moment, I knew so clearly that all of my problems
that had previously seemed so unfixable were completely fixable
except for the fact that I had just jumped."
He repented. Actually, I heard other people
and on the way down, they were praying, "Jesus, please help me." "God, I'm so sorry."
We have no idea what's going through someone's mind.
It could have been possible that they had repented.
Now this man lived.
Again, everything that seems so unfixable was completely fixable.
In fact, in most people—studies who've been people who have survived suicide attempts
or have made it through without actually even attempting suicide,
they look back and said,
"Oh man, I was tempted to try to find a 'permanent solution' for what was ultimately temporary problems."
All those who did not commit suicide look back on their lives and say,
"I'm so grateful that I didn't do that because all of the things that I was afraid of,
overwhelmed by, they all passed me by, they all got resolved somehow and I'm still here
and I'm glad that I'm alive."
I want to talk about the TV series—or, the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why.
I look back at this girl's life and think like,
"Oh my gosh, just get through high school. It's going to get better."
Like everything that—I mean, she was wounded in many, many ways,
but virtually everything that was going on in her life
with the right help, with the process of time,
it was going to get better.
And yet, in that moment, she took her own life.
That's why I want to say something about 13 Reasons Why
and it's something that if you've been affected by suicide if someone you love has taken their own life,
sometimes there's this weird emotion; we experience grief of course, right,
but sometimes the emotion that we experience as survivors of those who have committed suicide
is not just grief but it's anger.
It's intense confusion, because why?
Because this TV show 13 Reasons Why—
again, yeah, I brought it up to raise the question and all these kind of things,
Like here's my big problem with this TV series.
The whole series is a revenge story, right?
It's this girl who's been wronged and so what the 13 Reasons Why are—
this is why this is your fault.
This is why my death is your fault and your fault and your fault.
YOU'RE the reason why, right?
And so the pleasure—kind of like the pleasure, I guess—and not a lot of pleasure
but the pleasure we take in this series is that she's getting even,
she's taking revenge on the people who hurt her, the people who are her enemies
but here's the crazy thing about suicide.
Your enemies don't care.
The people who don't love you don't care.
The only people who get hurt are the ones who actually love you.
That's why this TV series, for whatever kind of merits it might have,
I don't think it has many— is this simply a revenge story
and that is foolishness.
I mean it's dumb.
And yet here as the survivors, what do we do? What do we do?
We can experience grief, we can experience anger.
But we also have to experience hope.
And hope means we're going to pray.
And this is what the Church actually does.
The Church commends to God's mercy all those who take their lives. Why?
Because we don't have the inside information but God does.
And so because we don't know, we're going to choose hope.
This is the Christian choice.
So if you know someone who has ever taken their own life,
please choose hope and pray for them.
If you are someone who is tempted to take your own life,
please choose hope
and get help.
There are people who want to help you.
Not everyone, because not everyone is perfect.
But there are people who want to help.
From all of us here at Ascension Presents, my name is Fr. Mike.
God bless.