In Catholicism, the situation was more complex.

Suicide was thought to be a mortal sin, of course.

But as a pastoral matter, in many places, Catholics who had committed suicide were denied funeral rites and burial in consecrated graveyards for concern of "public scandal of the faithful."

In recent decades, as America has become more secular, it has also become more determined to address the rising rates of suicide.

In the United States, National Suicide Prevention Week engages mental-health professionals and the general public about suicide and culminates in World Suicide Prevention Day, sponsored annually on Sept. 10 by the World Health Organization.

Moving away from engrained assumptions about individuals' selfishness and moral failings, both private associations and government agencies have portrayed suicide as a public-health problem to address through prevention strategies.

Accordingly, religious people and institutions today operate with a more sensitive and compassionate approach to suicide.

The Catechism of the Catholic Church now recognizes that "grave psychological disturbances" can reduce the moral culpability of suicide and no longer teaches that people who commit suicide necessarily go to hell: "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."

Even so, survey data shows that, in addition to demographic considerations, religion and proximity to suicide shape Americans' attitudes on the subject.

A new study by Lifeway Research, an evangelical firm specializing in surveys about faith and culture, shows that more than three-quarters agree that suicide has become an epidemic.

Less than a quarter believe people who die from suicide automatically face eternal judgment, with Protestants now more likely than Catholics to believe suicide victims are damned.

People with evangelical beliefs are twice as likely (39%) than those without evangelical beliefs (18%) to think suicide leads to hell.

Still, 38% of those surveyed say people who commit suicide are selfish, with more religiously devout respondents likelier to agree.

The Lifeway data suggests Americans consider suicide a serious social problem, with 4 in 10 saying it has claimed the lives of a friend or family member.

It's good for all involved that religious traditions, aided both by pastoral experience and insights from psychology and psychiatry, have adopted more compassionate beliefs about suicide.

But many faithful still do not understand that suicidality is not a sign of rejection by or of God, but rather a complex result of trauma, deep emotional disturbances and brain-chemistry anomalies.

And even fewer have the spiritual tools to grapple with the reality that suicidal ideation, as with all forms of self-harm, is a spectrum.

It may be as benign as passive, low-grade self-sabotage instincts or a one-off passing urge in a moment of distress. Or it can be as profound and intrusive as active wishes to die, whether compelled by delusions and psychoses or simply inescapable emotional torment.

Suicidal people need help, not condemnation. Yet even when faith traditions offer compassion in Scripture, doctrine or policy, it matters little to a suffering soul who experiences religiously fueled rejection by family members or friends.

I have experienced suicidal people who, in part due to active or latent faith commitments, summoned determination to keep themselves alive.

Likewise, I have heard stories of crushing pain from people whose own families essentially punished their openness about suicidal ideations with threats that God, the church and their family would abandon them.

Suicide is a near-universal phenomenon throughout history and around the world.

It is deeply related to religious themes, including meaning, hope, honour and suffering. But religious groups alone rarely have the capacity, competence or inclination to reduce suicide on a societal scale.

Millions of people contemplate suicide every year.

Religion at its worst sees them as sinners deserving of condemnation.

At their best, faithful people and institutions compassionately accompany people contemplating suicide toward connection, openness and treatment.

And when that fails, clergy and congregations must point to a God gracious and loving enough to hold not only the souls of people who take their own lives, but also to comfort and heal all who love and miss them.

• Jacob Lupfer is a writer in Jacksonville, Florida.
• First published in RNS. Republished with permission. The views expressed in this commentary do not necessarily reflect those of RNS.

Where to get help

Need to Talk? Free call or text 1737 any time to speak to a trained counsellor, for any reason.

Lifeline: 0800 543 354 or text HELP to 4357

Suicide Crisis Helpline: 0508 828 865 / 0508 TAUTOKO (24/7). This is a service for people who may be thinking about suicide, or those who are concerned about family or friends.

Depression Helpline: 0800 111 757 (24/7) or text 4202

Samaritans: 0800 726 666 (24/7)

Youthline: 0800 376 633 (24/7) or free text 234 (8am-12am), or email talk@youthline.co.nz

What's Up: online chat (3pm-10pm) or 0800 WHATSUP / 0800 9428 787 helpline (12pm-10pm weekdays, 3pm-11pm weekends)

Kidsline (ages 5-18): 0800 543 754 (24/7)

Rural Support Trust Helpline: 0800 787 254

Healthline: 0800 611 116

Rainbow Youth: (09) 376 4155

If it is an emergency and you feel like you or someone else is at risk, call 111.

In a Tuesday message for the International Day in Support of Victims of Torture, Francis said that torture didn't end in Auschwitz-Birkenau.

"Today people are being tortured. Many prisoners are tortured. Today in many places where there is war the same thing happens.

"Jesus carried this reality on his own shoulders. He asks us to pray," Francis says.

Secretary-General Antonio Guterres says "victims of torture have a right to an effective remedy, rehabilitation and redress."

Guterres said observing International Day in Support of Victims of Torture was instituted to acknowledge and honour the "many survivors of torture worldwide."

Victims include those who have been tortured for "their political or other views, those caught in the fight against terrorism or those who have been tortured simply because of their differences."

Although torture is condemned in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and in the United Nations Convention against Torture, Guterres says more action is needed to eradicate torture fully.

We should pay tribute "to all those who stand in solidarity with victims and their families and ... reaffirm our commitment to ending this abominable and useless practice," he says.

Source

• YouTube
• Vatican News
• Image: New Scientist

Jesus did not mince words when he said, "Woe to you who are rich," after listing the Beatitudes as written according to St. Luke, the pope said in a morning homily.

If anyone today "were to preach like that, the newspapers the next day (would say), 'That priest is a communist!' But poverty is at the heart of the Gospel," Francis said.

Celebrating Mass in the chapel of the Domus Sanctae Marthae May 24, Francis focused his homily on the day's first reading from the Letter of James (5:1-6) in which the apostle scolds the rich. Not only has their wealth "rotted away," the decay and corrosion of their material possessions "will be a testimony against you" on judgment day, the passage says.

James criticized employers who withheld wages from their workers, the pope said, and those workers' cries reached the ears of the Lord.

People today mistakenly might think James is "a union representative," Francis said, but he is an apostle whose words were inspired by the Holy Spirit.

Even in Italy, there are those who leave people out of work to protect their assets, but whoever does this, "Woe to you!" not according to the pope, but according to Jesus, he said.

Jesus, he said, is the one who says, "Woe to you who exploit people, who exploit labour, who pay under the table, who don't pay pension contributions, who don't offer vacation days. Woe to you!"

Wage theft, like "skimming" from people's paychecks, "is a sin; it is a sin," the pope said, even if the employer goes to Mass every day, belongs to Catholic associations and prays novenas.

When an employer doesn't pay what is due, he said, "this injustice is a mortal sin. You are not in God's grace. I'm not saying this, Jesus says it, the Apostle James says it."

The condemnation is severe because "wealth is idolatry" that seduces people, and Jesus knew people could not serve two masters — they must choose either God or money, Francis said.

Wealth "grabs you and doesn't let you go, and it goes against the first commandment" to love God with all one's heart, he said.

It also goes against the second commandment to love one's neighbor, he said, because a love of wealth "destroys the harmonious relationship between us" and "makes us selfish," he said. It "ruins life, ruins the soul." Continue reading

• Image: Philly Employment Lawyer

Preaching during Mass at his residence on Thursday, the Pope said Christians err when think such a theology is valid.

"You cannot serve God and wealth," the Pope said, reflecting on a passage from the letter of James.

While wealth can be a good thing if it is used for good ends, it can also become like a "chain" that pulls us away from being free to follow Jesus, said Francis.

During his homily, the Pope also named types of modern economic exploitation of people as mortal sins.

Continue reading

The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, having received the opinion of the Pontifical Council for the Laity, has decided that it would be appropriate to publish the present Doctrinal Note on some questions regarding the participation of Catholics in political life.

This Note is directed to the Bishops of the Catholic Church and, in a particular way, to Catholic politicians and all lay members of the faithful called to participate in the political life of democratic societies.

Central points in the current cultural and political debate - Doctrinal notes

It is not the Church's task to set forth specific political solutions - and even less to propose a single solution as the acceptable one - to temporal questions that God has left to the free and responsible judgment of each person.

It is, however, the Church's right and duty to provide a moral judgment on temporal matters when this is required by faith or the moral law.

When political activity comes up against moral principles that do not admit of exception, compromise or derogation, the Catholic commitment becomes more evident and laden with responsibility.

In the face of fundamental and inalienable ethical demands, Christians must recognise that what is at stake is the essence of the moral law, which concerns the integral good of the human person.

This is the case with laws concerning abortion and euthanasia (not to be confused with the decision to forgo extraordinary treatments, which is morally legitimate).

Such laws must defend the basic right to life from conception to natural death.

In the same way, it is necessary to recall the duty to respect and protect the rights of the human embryo.

As is stated by The Congregation for The Doctrine of the Faith it is a serious sin to vote for a candidate or party who proposes a policy that is contrary to the Church's teachings on abortion or euthanasia.

Whilst it is essential that an elector must be aware in conscience that God alone is the Lord of life from its beginning until its end every Catholic should know the Fifth Commandment, Thou Shall Not Kill.

This is not just a matter that can be left to an uneducated conscious but requires the clergy to exercise its commitment to teach God's law.

Our NZ Bishops appear to disagree with this teaching and they say "Certainly, it is not sinful to vote for the party or candidate you think is most suitable overall, even if that candidate or party advocates free abortion or euthanasia."

They then refer to a clarification on this matter by Cardinal Raymond Burke (who says "Catholics who support pro-abortion candidates participate in a grave evil. They must show a change of heart and be sacramentally reconciled or refrain from receiving Holy Communion.") and say that Cardinal Burke is caught up in uncharitable warfare and is an extremist.!!!

Prefect of the Sacred Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura and the President of the Advisory Board of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute Cardinal Raymond Burke could be wrong but he is fairly senior and one would assume qualified to speak on these matters.

As the New Zealand elections are fast approaching I would like to see some further advice from our Bishops advising the laity, for whom they have a Sacred responsibility, not who to vote for but who NOT to vote for, to avoid mortal sin.

Joe Hannah