'It was simply the end of what I could bear': Resetting Christian Theology on Mental Illness and Suicide

Elizabeth Antus event image

Elizabeth Antus
Boston College

Date: February 21, 2019
Location: Boisi Center, 24 Quincy Road

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Abstract

Of her bipolar disorder and her suicide attempt, the U.S. psychiatrist Kay Redfield Jamison recalls in Night Falls Fast, “I had tried earlier to kill myself…It was simply the end of what I could bear." The one million people who die by suicide annually —many of whom probably have a diagnosable mental illness — can likely relate to this psychic fatigue. However, there is relatively little Christian theological discussion of this vast public health problem, and traditional Christian views of suicide simply condemn it without fully recognizing the psychological agony of suicidal people. As Antus will discuss in her presentation, Christian theologians need to engage with psychological analyses of the experience of suicidality so that they can de-stigmatize suicidal people without normalizing suicide. Furthermore, Christians need to expand their belief in the communion of saints and remembering the dead to include, explicitly, those who have died by suicide. Resetting Christian theology in this manner enables Christians to discuss mental illness and suicide robustly and compassionately. 

Elizabeth Antus

Elizabeth Antus is an assistant professor of the practice in the theology department at Boston College. She is a Catholic systematic theologian writing about theological anthropology in relation to the topics of mental health, feminism, sexual violence, and disability. Among other projects, she is currently working on a book promoting a constructive Christian theological account of proper self-love entitled Steady My Soul: An Augustinian Feminist Account of Self-Love.

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Elizabeth Antus image

Elizabeth Antus, assistant professor of the practice of theology at Boston College, presented on Christian theology and suicide during a February 21, 2019 luncheon colloquium at the Boisi Center.

Elizabeth Antus
Elizabeth Antus

Photos by MTS Photography

Event Recap

Suicide’s relationship to mental illness has long been recognized by the general psychiatric community. Treating suicide as an effect of mental illness goes a long way toward approaching it less as a personal choice and more as an extension of an illness -- a tragic symptom rather than a social sin. This approach, Elizabeth Antus claims, is a way forward for Catholic moral theology, where suicide has long been seen in terms of personal and social wrongdoing rather than as the unfortunate result of deep physical, mental, and spiritual suffering. In her February 21st luncheon colloquium, Antus, a professor of the practice of theology at Boston College, suggested ways that Catholic doctrine be reoriented to destigmatize those who die by suicide without forgetting the damage that suicide does to self, community, and society. Even if the aim of current Catholic teaching on suicide is well intended, namely, to prevent suicide and emphasize its painful and wide-ranging effects on those left behind, the focus on a person’s actions rather than on the social and psychological reasons for those actions threatens to dehumanize and unjustly condemn suicide victims. In her remarks, Antus advocated creating a space to grieve and remember well those who have died by suicide. This both recognizes the tragedy of the event while raising up and remembering those who have passed. Antus used the German Catholic theologian Johann Baptist Metz to support her argument, saying that, for Metz, theology must be conducted in the midst of theodicy. The question of suffering is omnipresent and cannot be answered, only recognized. This mindset makes rightly remembering the dead essential: recognizing suffering and believing in the saving truth of God means hoping that no one is lost to God because of worldly suffering and the stain of sin. As Antus put it, we must hope that “even suicide decedents are in the communion of saints.” If Catholic theology seeks to engage the issue of suicide more pastorally and with greater mercy, it must begin to see suicide as “simply the end of what I could bear,” a line taken from Kay Redfield Jamison’s Night Falls Fast. “Is it a sin to buckle?” Antus asked. If there simply is no more strength left to hold oneself upright, how can we condemn someone for faltering? Taking this compassionate approach is the first step toward reorienting Catholic teaching on suicide, Antus maintained. A lively question and answer session followed her presentation, which touched on the ways universities fail to offer adequate mental health counseling to students and how to teach about suicide in the Catholic moral theological tradition, among others.

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BOOKS

Ashley, Benedict M., Jean DeBlois, and Kevin D. ORourke. Health Care Ethics: A Catholic Theological Analysis. 5th ed. Washington, D.C.: Georgetown University Press, 2006.

Jamison, Kay Redfield. Night Falls Fast. New York: Vintage, 2000.

ARTICLES

Antus, Elizabeth L. "Disability at the Heart of Theology: On Marginality, Method, and Overcoming 'Best-Case Anthropologies.' Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 17, no. 4 (July 2013): 244-262. 

Wesselmann, Eric D. and William G. Graziano. “Sinful and/or Possessed? Religious Beliefs and Mental Illness Stigma.” Journal of Social and Clinical Psychology 29, no. 4 (2010): 402-437. 

Kennedy, Thomas D. “."Christianity Today. July 1, 2000.

Koch, H. J. “Suicides and Suicide Ideation in the Bible: An Empirical Study.” Acta Psychiatrica Scandinavica 112, no. 3 (September 2005): 167-172. 

Lee, Rhonda Mawhood. “”,National Catholic Register. June 14, 2018.

Pillion, Thomas, Robin Reed, and Brian Shetiman. "Mental Illness Recognition and Referral by Catholic Priests in North Carolina."Psychiatric Services 63, no. 5 (2012): 510-11. 

Webb, Marcia. "Toward a Theology of Mental Illness."Journal of Religion, Disability & Health 16, no. 1 (2012): 49-73. 

In the News

, Dr. Lisa Pryor discusses how the discussion around mental health has shifted and the positive and negative impacts of that shift. She argues that while much good has been done, many illnesses are still left out of the picture and our discussions need to shift even further.