Memorial honors priest who founded Catholic suicide survivor program in 1979
Earlier this year, the Chicago archdiocese dedicated what it describes as the first memorial of its kind by any US archdiocese for people who died by suicide, honoring a priest who founded a counseling program for survivors more than four decades ago. The memorial, titled “At Peace,” stands at the Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery in Hillside, Illinois, the same cemetery that houses the world’s largest Catholic mausoleum.
The archdiocese dedicated the memorial in honor of the Rev. Charles Rubey, who in 1979 founded the Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide, a counseling and support program run by Catholic Charities of the archdiocese of Chicago.
To Rubey, the memorial is a sign of the church’s shift toward a more compassionate understanding of suicide.
“They’ve made a complete turnaround embracing families who have lost a loved one to suicide,” Rubey said. “They’re no longer condemned or thought to be in hell.”
The memorial marks a reversal of centuries-old Catholic practice. Until a 1917 church law was revised in 1983, those who died by suicide were denied Catholic burials on consecrated grounds. Catholic teaching continues to consider suicide a sin while acknowledging that mental health problems can lead people to take their own lives and that salvation remains possible for them. In recent decades, a greater understanding of mental illness has helped shift the cultural view on suicide and influenced Catholic teaching.
The decision to place the memorial at the prominent Queen of Heaven Cemetery was a deliberate one. “We did not want this memorial hidden away and we were intentional in every detail,” Sullivan said when the memorial was announced. “This is not something we are ashamed of.”
The Rev. James Martin, editor at large of the Jesuit magazine America, said the church’s approach mirrors that of the broader society, with more sympathy extended to all affected by suicide. “To be able to extend pastoral care to the family members is extremely important, and to not make them feel any sense of shame or isolation, or judgment on them from the church,” Martin said.
Chicago-born Pope Leo XIV has dedicated some of his monthly prayer intentions to people suffering from mental health problems and suicidal thoughts. He called on the church to become “a safe space where everyone has a place – a community that accompanies and never excludes, that listens without judging and draws near without fear.”
Ed Shoener, whose daughter Katie died by suicide in 2016, co-founded the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers to “educate parish communities to break down the stigma around mental illness and to accompany people in the midst of these struggles.” The global association advocates for the Catholic church to do more to improve mental health care.
In January, Shoener met with Pope Leo to thank him for his interest in mental health and told the pontiff he hoped the church could issue an in-depth statement about mental health in the form of an apostolic letter or an encyclical. This month, Shoener returned to the Vatican for an event coinciding with Leo’s monthly prayer intention and World Mental Health Day on Saturday.
Religious leaders and health professionals will gather at the Vatican to examine how parishes respond to mental health issues and how to answer Leo’s call to establish mental health ministries to overcome stigma and discrimination.
Shoener said his hope is that mental health ministry becomes standard practice in every parish worldwide. “I’d love to see this become just a fully integrated ministry into the church – that it’s a common ministry in every parish around the world, just like youth ministry,” he said.
In the US, the 988 Suicide & Crisis Lifeline can be reached at 988 or at 988lifeline.org. In the UK and Ireland, Samaritans can be contacted on freephone 116 123. In Australia, the crisis support service Lifeline is 13 11 14. Other international helplines can be found at befrienders.org.