November 2025; For the Prevention of Suicide
- Pauline Books & Media
- 1 day ago
- 4 min read
Each year nearly 700,000 people die by suicide, according to WHO; the World Health Organisation. In our fast-paced world, when loneliness, stress, and emptiness are commonplace, suicide has emerged as one of the most heartbreaking problems of our time. There is a person, a narrative, and a soul behind every number who felt so hopeless that death seemed to be the only option. Our response must be one of compassion, support, and faith in Christ's salvation.
Catechism of the Catholic Church
Article 5 THE FIFTH COMMANDMENT
I. Respect for Human Life
Suicide
2280 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.
2282 Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.
2283 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.
Prayer for the Dead has great power
For if he were not expecting that those who had fallen would rise again, it would have been superfluous and foolish to pray for the dead. But if he was looking to the splendid reward that is laid up for those who fall asleep in godliness, it was a holy and pious thought. Therefore he made atonement for the dead, that they might be delivered from their sin.
2 Maccabees 12: 44-45
We must never stop praying for them, because God's mercy is greater than our understanding.
Pope Francis
Address of Pope Francis to the Delegation of the Italian National Youth Council, 16 Nov 2024
As we know – also from the news in these days – the challenges you face are many: the dignity of work, the family, education, civic engagement, care for creation and new technologies. The increase in acts of violence and self-harm, up to the most extreme gesture of taking one's own life, are signs of a worrying and complex malaise. You know that, in the world, youth suicides are not all published, they are hidden. It is a change of era, a metamorphosis not only cultural but also anthropological. This is why an educational path involving everyone is fundamental. I can say that we need a ‘village of education’ where, in diversity, we share a commitment to generate a network of human and open relationships. What is needed is a pact, an alliance, between those who wish to put the person at the centre and, at the same time, are willing to invest new energy in the training of those who will serve the community.
You are called to be witnesses to the beauty and newness of life. There is a beauty that goes beyond appearances: it is that of every man and woman who live out their personal vocation with love, in selfless service to the community, in generous work for the happiness of the family, in unselfish commitment to making social friendship grow. Discovering, showing and highlighting this beauty means laying the foundations of social solidarity and the culture of encounter. Your selfless service for truth and freedom, for justice and peace, for the family and politics is the most beautiful and most necessary contribution you can make to the institutions for building a new society. And this is not done with ideas; it is done with human capabilities, all our capabilities, without forgetting the extremes of life. There are two things I will leave with you as questions: some of you, you are married, you have children – do you know how to play with your children? Are you capable of “wasting” time to play with your children, or with your grandchildren? “Because even if God does not give children, the devil gives grandchildren”. Are you capable of this? This ability to play. And then, another question: are you capable of caressing an elderly person? Playing with children, and caressing the elderly. And today, in our culture, children are left to grow up alone, without tenderness, and the elderly are sent to rest homes, to die there. We must change: play with children, and caress the elderly. And this will make your youth fruitful. Do not forget this: children and the elderly.
Allow me, finally, to say the most important thing to you, that truth that for a Christian must never be silenced. It is a proclamation that concerns everyone, young and old, and which we always need to hear again: “God loves you, you know”, “God loves you”, “Christ saves you”, “He lives!”. If He lives, then hope is not in vain. Evil, pessimism, and scepticism will not have the last word. And so many young people fall prey to this scepticism, also sustained by drugs. At the start of being Christian there is not an ethical decision or a grand idea, but the encounter with a Person, it is the encounter with Jesus, who gives life a new horizon. Hope, the state of mind in which today Italians most identify themselves, for us Christians as a name and a face: the face of the Lord, the face of Jesus.
The Pastoral Approach
Pay attention to warning signs
extreme seclusion/loneliness
feelings of hopelessness
worrying changes in behaviour
As Catholics, we should respond with love-based companionship rather than judgment
listening without lessening any discomfort/suffering
Prayer and partaking in the Sacraments
Seek professional help
Survivor's Grief: Alleviating the pain and suffering of those left behind
Acknowledge their sorrow
Let them know that God did not forsake their loved one.
Encourage them to have faith and trust in the Divine Mercy of God. The soul's deepest wounds can be healed by God who defeated death.
Angelus, Pope Francis, 10 October 2021
After the Angelus the Holy Father continued:
Today, on the occasion of World Mental Health Day, I would like to remember our brothers and sisters affected by mental disorders and also the victims, often young, of suicide. Let us pray for them and for their families, so that they are not left alone or discriminated against, but welcomed and supported.
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