Is my grandmother in hell because she committed suicide?

[Christian_Mommy]

I am a Protestant Christian whose mother and grandmother considered themselves Catholic, as they both were German citizens. This is my first visit to your web site, and I am seriously thinking about becoming a Catholic although I have much to learn about it first!

My grandmother, being very depressed, committed suicide; and I wonder tearfully if she is doomed to hell, or if she is in heaven, or if she is in purgatory. I do not know the Catholic teaching about this and although I’ve been trained to believe that anything other than Protestantism is heresy, I’m frustrated that I can’t pray for my grandmother’s soul. Can I do that? Is she perhaps in purgatory and I can pray for her safe return to heaven one day?

 

[Michelle_Arnold]

Here is a Q&A on the subject of suicide that appeared in the July-August 2004 issue of Catholic Answers’ magazine This Rock:

**Q: I have been told that the Catholic Church teaches that anyone who commits suicide goes to hell. Is this true? **

A: No. What the Church teaches is that anyone who commits a mortal sin and does not repent before death goes to hell. Mortal sin requires three conditions: grave matter, full knowledge of the gravity of the action, and full and free consent to the action. If any of those three conditions are missing, there is not mortal sin. All we can say for certain is that suicide constitutes grave matter. Given the fact that people who take their own lives often are very ill or under psychological stress, those factors can impede their knowledge and consent, making their actions tragic but not mortally sinful. Only someone who freely chooses to commit suicide with full knowledge of the gravity of the sinfulness would commit mortal sin by his suicide. Even then, between unconsciousness and final death, God might offer the person one final chance to repent, even if such an opportunity is not apparent to us.

The Church says this about the eternal destiny of those who have taken their own lives: “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” (CCC 2283) source].

Christian_Mommy:

I’m frustrated that I can’t pray for my grandmother’s soul. Can I do that?

Yes, of course, you can pray for your grandmother’s soul. Praying for the deceased is not only a Catholic tradition; some Protestants, such as C. S. Lewis, have believed in doing so also. Here is what Lewis said on the subject:

Of course I pray for the dead. The action is so spontaneous, so all but inevitable, that only the most compulsive theological case against it would deter me. And I hardly know how the rest of my prayers would survive if those for the dead were forbidden. At our age the majority of those we love best are dead. What sort of intercourse with God could I have if what I love best were unmentionable to him? (source: Letters to Malcolm).

Christian_Mommy:

Is she perhaps in purgatory and I can pray for her safe return to heaven one day?

This is something for which we may hope and pray. Lewis also once stated, on the subject of purgatory:

I believe in purgatory. … The right view returns magnificently in [John Henry] Newman’s Dream [of Gerontius]. There, if I remember it rightly, the saved soul, at the very foot of the throne, begs to be taken away and cleansed. It cannot bear for a moment longer “with its darkness to affront that light.” … Our souls demand* purgatory, don’t they? Would it not break the heart if God said to us, “It is true, my son, that your breath smells and your rags drip with mud and slime, but we are charitable here and no one will upbraid you with these things, nor draw away from you. Enter into the joy”? Should we not reply, “With submission, sir, and if there is no objection, I’d rather be cleansed first.” “It may hurt, you know.” “Even so, sir” (source: Letters to Malcolm).
Recommended reading:

Purgatory
The Roots of Purgatory
Final Purification
The Biblical Doctrine of Purgatory by Patrick Madrid