In this episode Trent shares how the issue of suicide recently affected him and then clears up misconceptions people have about the Church’s teaching on this subject.
I’m going to be honest with you. I wasn’t sure if I should do this episode today. I mean, this is a sensitive subject in general, and it is an important one to talk about, but I don’t know. There’s a disturbing thing that happened to me. And I wondered, is this a story? Should I share? Is it appropriate to share? I don’t want to just be sensationalistic or anything like that. And so, I prayed a lot. And I was just praying and thinking, is there good that can come out of this where I could help others? And I think there is. So that’s why I want to talk about this today. But this is a tough subject in general to talk about. So just fair warning for people tuning in to today’s episode, that I’m going to be talking about a sensitive subject. And I’m going to be talking about something disturbing related to that, that happened to me. But I want to do so in a sensitive way so that this can be a service to others that might be faced with something like this. So that’s what I want to talk about today.
Trent Horn:
For those of you who don’t know me, by the way, my name is Trent Horn. I’m an apologist and speaker at Catholic Answers. This is The Council of Trent Podcast. And so, today I want to talk about the issue of suicide and what the church teaches specifically about suicide, because some people might be confused or don’t know exactly what the church teaches. This could lead to misunderstandings. And it can lead to very painful things and painful misunderstandings of what the church teaches on this subject. So the reason though that I want to talk about the issue of suicide was that I was involved, essentially, I was the catalyst for a suicide investigation recently.
Trent Horn:
So this involved an individual that I did not previously know. And I’m going to be intentionally vague and ambiguous about the details, because I followed up with the medical examiner to find out exactly what happened, and who this individual was. But I don’t want to share details about this person, including details that a person could piece together. I mean, if you did enough work, I guess you could piece it together. But the point is, I want to respect the privacy of this individual and their family, while still relating what happened to me. So I’m going to be intentionally vague about some of the details I’m going to share.
Trent Horn:
So here’s what happened. I was out in public, in a public area. And I noticed, off in the distance, something that I thought was a mannequin. I wasn’t sure. I thought it was a pile of clothes or a mannequin. So I was in this public area, outdoors. And I thought, well, it looks almost like a person, or it looks just like a dummy, or what is that? So I walked over. And this was in kind of a secluded area, not too far off from a public area where other people could end up there. But it was a bit more secluded. And so I walked over there, and the form and figure of a person started to emerge more as I got a little bit closer.
Trent Horn:
And at first I thought, oh, maybe this is just a homeless person who fell asleep. I’m just going to come over and just make sure that they’re all right. As I got closer to this person, though, I saw that they were lying in a very large pool of blood. It was a large pool of blood surrounding their entire body. And I looked at their hands and their face, and it was white and waxy in appearance. And it was a young man. And his eyes were closed. And I felt like my heart skipped stop. Really, when I see this, because you’re not expecting that. At first, my mind is racing very quickly, like is this some kind of prank? Is this a joke? And then I look closer and see, no, this is a human being. But I’m almost positive that they have died, that they’re deceased, and they’ve suffered some kind of a traumatic injury to bring about their death, hence the large amount of blood loss.
Trent Horn:
At first, I thought about going quickly to render aid to this person. But I knelt down, looked at their chest, saw it was not rising. And just looking at their face and hands, I was 99% confident this person was deceased. They were waxy skinned, that they were a corpse. And that there was nothing I could do to help this person. And that, at this point, all I could do would be to get help. Well, to get the authorities to arrive to determine what happened. That the only way I could help now is to help others find out what had had happened to this young man, because I wasn’t sure. Did this person fall and suffer an injury? I didn’t even think suicide at that time. I thought, has this person been murdered? And then what really scared me was, I was in kind of a secluded area, seeing this individual, thinking, was this person murdered?
Trent Horn:
And then the hair on the back of my neck stood up. And I looked around thinking, what if this person was murdered? And what if the murderer is still nearby? And so, I looked around. And then this was all happening though. I think even before I was doing that, I called 911 reported the location. And what I told them, I said, “I believe I have found a dead body and I need help to come soon.” And so, the 911 dispatcher was very professional, walked me through it. And I was very deliberate to not touch the body. I stayed three feet away, not even getting my footprints near the blood. I looked around. I was cognizant of the scene. I looked around to see, was there somebody else watching? Could I identify?
Trent Horn:
And so, I was on the phone explaining the deceased individual’s height and weight and clothing, and waiting for the police to arrive, giving them the specific location. They also sent fire and ambulance because it could be possible the person was alive, I don’t know. They counseled me not to touch the body. I said I was pretty sure this person was dead. They told me to get down, look if their chest is rising, to yell at them. I yelled at the individual to try to rouse him. But I was convinced. And so, I didn’t want to touch the body.
Trent Horn:
The police arrived within about four minutes, along with a fire truck and an ambulance. And as soon as the firefighters saw the deceased, they came down with medical equipment, but they just shook their heads. And the first time they saw this guy, they said, bring a sheet. From their experience, they knew instantly this person had been dead for several hours. I mean, I told the 911 operator, this is the first time I’ve seen a dead body, which actually isn’t true. I have seen deceased human beings before. I went to that exhibit, Bodies. Those are dead human beings. We don’t think about that when we’re there. I’ve been to open casket funerals. But when you go to an open casket funeral, you’re prepared, right? You are mentally and emotionally preparing yourself for seeing the body of a loved one being put on display in a wake, to pay one’s respects. So I’ve been to open casket funerals before. But I think it really caught me off guard to discover a dead body out in public.
Trent Horn:
I mean, this was something that I used to make fun of on Law and Order. Every time you watch an episode of Law and Order, it starts with cheesy dialogue. And people are making this cheesy dialogue at three in the afternoon. And they’re like, oh, oh my goodness, a dead body. And you see in the show. But then when it really has happens to you, because you’re not expecting it, just the flood of adrenaline, especially the extra adrenaline, because I thought this person had been a victim of homicide. It is interesting that, open casket funeral, I’ll never forget what that individual looked like. And I’ll never forget this individual whose body I discovered, what they looked like. And so that was the end of it. And they found the individual. I left my contact information with the police. They didn’t follow up with me. And I wanted to know what happened. I especially wanted to know if there had been a murder. I was definitely like, what is going on here?
Trent Horn:
But I followed up the case with the medical examiner. And it was declared that the individual, he had taken his own life. So he died by suicide, and survived by different loved ones. When that happens, I don’t know if you’ve ever, maybe you’ve been personally involved with suicide. This is the first time I had been personally involved with it. I hadn’t known people who had committed suicide before. But it is just so sudden. I know people who it has happened to. It’s just so sudden, a lot of times. You wonder how could that have happened? How could I have missed this?
Trent Horn:
So what I want to talk about now, I prayed for that individual. If you could pray for him and his family, I would appreciate that. I’m at least grateful that I found this individual when I did. If I had not, he might have been reported missing for much longer. So maybe I helped to prevent the status of the person being missing from being unduly extended, which is a source of grief. And it still shakes me up to think about. But I’m grateful that maybe I found this person so someone else did not have to, and they don’t have to have this image burned in their minds like me. If I can carry that burden for someone else, then I understand that’s what God is calling me to do so no one else, or a child, or someone else didn’t find this body. If I can take on that burden so they don’t have to see this tragedy, then maybe that’s something good from that.
Trent Horn:
So that’s what happened to me. And so I wanted to tell you what happened. And I want to use this as an opportunity to talk about what does the church teach about suicide? Because some people, there’s two mistaken views. One view is that suicide is always wrong. And anyone who commits suicide’s going to hell. The other mistaken view is that suicide is never wrong. And it’s not a sin. Both of those are mistaken views.
Trent Horn:
Let me read to you what the catechism says. These are paragraphs 2280 through 2283. It starts, “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.” Then 2281, it says, “Suicide contradicts the natural inclination of the human being to preserve and perpetuate his life. It is gravely contrary to the just love of self. It likewise offends love of neighbor because it unjustly breaks the ties of solidarity with family, nation and other human societies to which we continue to have obligations. Suicide is contrary to love for the living God.”
Trent Horn:
So suicide, I think everybody agrees it’s bad. Some people celebrate assisted suicide, which is an ironic double standard there that, in our culture, if you are healthy, suicide is a tragedy. If you are disabled or sick, suicide is a right. And then we start to say, oh, well, some people’s lives are worth living. Other people’s lives are not worth living. That’s a dangerous road to go down. So suicide is wrong because our lives are not our own. And also, we have obligations to others. One of the great harms that when people take their own lives is the damage it causes to others that have a relationship with them. It causes great harm to the survivors. Those who are left behind. That’s another reason that it’s wrong. But that doesn’t mean one is fully culpable of the wrongness, which we’re going to get to here shortly.
Trent Horn:
So if suicide is committed with the intention of setting, an example, especially to the young, it also takes on the gravity of scandal. Voluntary cooperation in suicide is contrary to the moral law. In fact, there was a case in Massachusetts, I think, recently of a girl who basically egged on her boyfriend. And she ridiculed him and dared him to kill himself. And he did. And she was held criminally liable for that. So all up to this point, we can see suicide’s bad, it’s wrong. I think people can see that it’s culpability that’s going to be the main issue.
Trent Horn:
But there are also, clearly, cases where a person is morally culpable. God will hold them accountable for what they’ve done. An example might be a criminal who has done horrible things. He is then captured by the police, and then chooses to commit suicide so he does not have to face a trial, doesn’t have to go to prison. So he commits suicide to not have to face the consequences of his actions. I would say there that that criminal is going to be held accountable for his bad acts, as well as committing suicide to escape justice, civil justice, for what he has done.
Trent Horn:
That being said, even though there are going to be some cases where suicide, a person is morally culpable for what they’ve done. We have learned, in the past 100 years, in the development of psychological sciences, that I would say the vast majority of people who choose suicide, they are mentally unwell. And so they’re not going to be morally culpable or at least their culpability is greatly diminished if not completely erased for what they have chosen to do because in many cases they have a mental illness, so they’re not fully rational.
Trent Horn:
So the catechism says, in paragraph 2282 and 2283, “Grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering or torture, can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide.” Another example would be people who are in the World Trade Center. And it’s on fire, and they’re on fire, and they don’t want to burn to death. And they run and jump out of a broken window to escape the fire. Are these people committing suicide? I am of the opinion that they’re not actually technically committing suicide because they don’t want to die. They want to escape the fire. So if somebody told them, “Hey, if you jump out this window, you’ll land on an inflatable airbag and you won’t die.” They’re not going to say, “Oh, nevermind. I’m not going to jump out that window.” Clearly they would be more enthusiastic about doing so because not only will they get away from the fire. They’re going to live. Their intention is not to die. Their intention is to escape the thing that is causing them great pain, foreseeing they probably will die.
Trent Horn:
But that’s different from someone who wants to take their own life, and they take a gun. And you tell them, oh, that gun is full of blanks. It won’t kill you. They’ll put the gun away because they want to die. But even so, there could be other circumstances where somebody commits suicide, maybe they’re a spy, they don’t want to give up secrets to the enemy under torture, that could get other people killed. I would say that it’s still wrong, but the culpability involved is greatly, greatly diminished because of extenuating circumstances. The church is always taught that the morality of an act, there are the object, the intention and the circumstances that are involved.
Trent Horn:
So suicide is wrong, but especially, we’ll talk about the majority of cases. If someone’s suffering from mental illness, they don’t have all their rational faculties. And so, they’re far less culpable. So that’s why the catechism ends in paragraph 2283, saying, “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.” So we don’t know.
Trent Horn:
I remember watching a documentary about the Golden Gate Bridge. And there was a filmmaker who film the Golden Gate Bridge for a year. And he captured about, I think like 20 suicides. He called the police anytime he thought somebody was going to jump. But in many cases they didn’t get there in time, and the person jumped. And he was doing this documentary. And he interviewed a guy who tried to commit suicide, jumping off the Golden Gate Bridge and lived. And the guy said, when he jumped off the bridge, he realized at that instant, he had made the greatest mistake of his life. And so, it’s quite possible that in the microsecond of someone making the decision to commit suicide and before their death, they realize they have done wrong. They repent. They should not have done this. They ask God to have mercy on them. Through ways known only to God alone. That’s why we pray for individuals who’ve taken their own lives. And we don’t automatically say they’re damned.
Trent Horn:
There was a tradition that those who committed suicide were not given Catholic burial. Canon law has changed since then to just say that people who are notorious sinners, that’s why mobsters back east were not given Catholic funerals, like John Gotti. Because that’s scandal, you lived your whole life apart from the faith. Even in your death, we don’t want people to think that this is the life they ought to live. But even you go back to Rudolf, the crown prince of Austria, 1889, he and his lover, Marie Freiin von Vetsera, they committed suicide, I believe. They committed suicide. And Pope Leo XIII granted for him to be given a Catholic funeral, because I think a doctor testified that he had some brain abnormalities that would have inhibited right judgment.
Trent Horn:
So this is not as new. You won’t find it 1500 years ago or anything. But as we discovered sciences of psychology, neuroscience, anatomy, we’ve come to see that mental illness can be as debilitating as physical illness. Expecting a mentally ill person to be rational can be as illogical as expecting a handicapped person to walk, someone who is non-ambulatory, can’t move with their legs. So that’s what the church teaches. So suicide is wrong, but we have hope for those, and we pray for people who have taken their own lives, and pray for the person that I came across.
Trent Horn:
Finally, I want to leave you, this is from the American foundation for suicide prevention. These are warning signs. Everybody’s different. There’s not a universal behavior. But there’s some things to watch out for if you see. And then you should talk to the person and be frank. Talking about suicide is not going to make somebody do it. In fact, it might help dissuade them. It shows somebody cares. So things to watch out for. It says, what people say and they do. So if they talk about killing themselves, they talk about being hopeless, they talk about having no reason to live, they talk about being a burden on other people, feeling trapped or their life is unbearable. Ask them, would you ever take your own life?
Trent Horn:
Now, caveat, I’m not a mental health professional. I would say, if you are concerned, call a suicide prevention hotline. And if you’re saying I’m concerned about somebody, ask a professional for advice and then talk to the person. But don’t be afraid to look out for the warning signs, and talk to them and show that you’re concerned and you care about them, and you have a concern.
Trent Horn:
So there’s talk. Then there’s behavior. What they do. So increased use of alcohol or drugs, searching for online methods to commit suicide, withdrawal, isolation, imbalanced sleep. Two unique ones are visiting or calling people to say goodbye and giving away prized possessions, like trying to tie up loose ends. If you see people doing that, that’s a real big red flag to be on the lookout for. And then moods, can be depression, anxiety, irritability, humiliation, agitation. I mean, a lot of people have these moods without ending their own lives. I think, especially talk and behavior. The more specific they are, the more you should be on the lookout for. And don’t hesitate to call the suicide hotline. The number I have on in here is 1800-273-8255. 1800-273-8255.
Trent Horn:
Even if you’re not feeling that, maybe you can get help from somebody else. It’s better to overreact than to ignore and pretend like the problem is not there. So just pray for everyone who was involved in this thing that happened with me. And I hope this was beneficial to everybody. As I said before, my goal was absolutely to not sensationalize this tragedy that happened. I really just wanted to talk about something that happened to me, and almost kind of debrief it with you guys.
Trent Horn:
I wanted to just share, this is what happened to me. And I hope that if some good can come from this to help people to understand what the church teaches, and if people are struggling, look, God made you. And you wouldn’t be here without God. He wants you to live. Your life is precious to him and to others. I hope that’s helpful. And be on the lookout for signs if you see them. Pray for others. And let’s just practice warmth and treating other human beings with dignity. So I hope that was helpful for you guys. Thank you, guys, for letting me share what happened. And I just hope that you guys all have a very blessed day. Thank you, guys.