is it pointless to pray for those who have committed suicide?

[Shirtless]

Correct; the Church’s doctrine has not changed (it couldn’t) even if her response to suicides has evolved. Suicide is still objectively gravely sinful and like any mortal sin, can send one to hell when done with full knowledge and consent.

But those who suffer terrible mental illness often do not have full consent, since things like depression can be so bad it drives the person to just end it This is the illness talking, not the will of the person. The Church understands this clinical discovery and responds accordingly.

The “clinical discovery” as you call it was understood by the scientific community long before the church dropped its uncharitable attitude toward suicide. The church’s unenlightened view of suicide inflicted no harm on the suicide, of course, because he was dead and in the hands of God, but it caused many families to endure shame and humiliation.

The will to live, the instinct to survive, is a powerful force. For a person to overcome it, and to end his own life, should carry a presumption that it was done in manner not involving a knowing or deliberate act.

The church, fortunately, has made many clinical discoveries. For example, it no longer persecutes people for teaching that the earth revolves around the sun, as it once did Galileo, and it no longer burns women at the stake for wearing pants, as it did St. Joan of Arc.

 

[truetofaith]

We should never give up praying for anyone. We don’t know how close our prayers came to changing a person’s final destination.

 

[laylow]

We are supposed to forgive, as the Lord has forgiven. We are not to judge, unless we want to be judged.