The Church’s teaching on suicide: everything you need to know

What does the Catholic Church teach about suicide – and why?

WARNING: The following essay deals with very serious issues. Some readers may be troubled by its content, especially if they have lost loved ones to suicide.

Reader discretion is required. (LifeSiteNews) — The Archdiocese of Chicago has erected a cemetery memorial “specifically for survivors of suicide and for the lives lost to suicide.”

The “At Peace” memorial was also intended to honour Father Charles Rubey, who has spent 50 years of his priestly life “fighting the stigma surrounding suicide,” the archdiocese said. “The memorial,” Rubey claimed, “shows survivors that their loved ones are with God, their lives were sacred and they are included among the faithful.” The Archdiocese’s article states that “(h)istorically, the Catholic Church denied Catholic funerals in churches and burials in consecrated ground for individuals who died by suicide.”

But now, the article continues, “the Church has undergone a significant transformation in its understanding of suicide and mental illness and now recognizes that many who die by suicide suffer from mental illness and unbearable pain.” “The Church now embraces these individuals and affirms that they are with God, not condemned,” it claimed. Rubey also told the Chicago Tribune that he had “developed a ritual to bless sites where people had died from suicide.”

“That’s where they encountered God,” he said. According to the U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, there were 48,824 suicide deaths in 2024. While this was somewhat reduced from 2022 and 2023, it is the third highest year on record since 2001; since 2015, there has not been a year in which fewer than 44,000 suicide deaths.[1]

In 2024, 2.2 million adults attempted suicide, with 4.6 million planning a suicide attempt and 14.3 million seriously thinking about suicide. According to the CDC, the highest suicide rates are among Native Americans and non-Hispanic whites.[2] Men were nearly four times more likely to kill themselves than women, according to the data. At the time of publication, France has also become the latest country to legalize “assisted suicide” and euthanasia (distinguished by who administers the lethal drug).

But what is the traditional teaching of the Church on this matter? What is the rationale behind this traditional teaching? And what is the practical effect of denying it under such conditions?

Intention of this article and some disclaimers The purpose of this article is to present the traditional teaching of the Church on suicide. However, aside from the intrinsic doctrinal interest of this topic, a second and equally important intention is the protection of the vulnerable. Suicide is wholly preventable, even if it feels otherwise to the suicidal person.

Depression and mental health problems can be managed. The suicidal person must be helped to understand that he is valuable in himself and to society. He is made in the image and likeness of God, and loved by Him, and called by Him to eternal joy, peace, and relief in Heaven – if only he be willing persevere in God’s will for a little while here on Earth.

After that, he will realize that “the sufferings of this time are not worthy to be compared with the glory to come.” (Rom. 8.18) For decades, the Church’s traditional teaching on a variety of subjects – including suicide – has been obscured.

It is not unreasonable to think that some persons who have committed suicide (or had abortions, or embraced other immoral choices) would not have done so if they had been exposed to the traditional teaching of the Church. It is foreseeable that an exposition of this teaching may cause pain to those who have lost loved ones to suicide. Although it is foreseeable, it is not the intention: the intention is to help rebuild a bulwark and to protect other vulnerable persons from making the same choices as their loved ones.

For these reasons, let us repeat the disclaimer from the start of this essay: Reader discretion is required. The traditional teaching of the Church on suicide In this article, the term suicide refers both to the act of killing oneself and to the person who commits this act.

The Fifth Commandment – or the Sixth, according to Protestant numbering – is Thou shalt not kill. The Church understands this commandment to pertain to a wide variety of matters beyond the direct and intentional murder of a human being. For instance, she considers sins of anger, hatred, and sins of the tongue to be prohibited by this commandment; she also holds that it does not prohibit capital punishment or lethal force used in proportionate self-defense.

The Church has always taught that suicide is a violation of the commandment. The Catechism of the Council of Trent teaches: (The Commandment) also forbids suicide. No man possesses such power over his own life as to be at liberty to put himself to death.

Hence we find that the Commandment does not say: Thou shalt not kill another, but simply: Thou shalt not kill. St. Augustine, cited by St. Thomas Aquinas, also teaches: (T)he words “Thou shalt not kill” refer to the killing of a man, not another man; therefore, not even thyself. For he who kills himself, kills nothing else than a man.[3] While the suicidal act is a sin against the Fifth Commandment, temptation to sin is no sin at all (unless the person consents to it); neither is depression.

Both will be addressed below. Two Dominican moral theologians, Frs McHugh and Callan, distinguish various forms of self-killing. We will follow their two-volume 1958 work, Moral Theology: A Complete Course Based on St. Thomas Aquinas and the Best Modern Authorities, throughout this work: it is a standard