Shining a light on truth vs. comforting the grieving? Funeral homily in cases of suicide

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0331 said:
What is so offensive about what this priest said? I read the homily and it seemed quite hopeful in Christ’s mercy.
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Agreed. I read the homily now that the full text has been released. I don’t think Father at all said what the parents claimed he did. Now, the homily doesn’t seem to be what the family expected – they seemed to expect Father not to mention his cause of death at all. And I think that it might be fair for the pastor and archbishop to chat with Father, if Father implied the funeral homily would be one thing and then gave a totally different homily altogether. Certainly that caused the family pain. But I don’t see anything against Church teaching in his homily, nor do I see anywhere that he condemned the deceased young man to hell.
Tis_Bearself said:
My point is that the funeral Mass is not the place to suggest in the homily that the deceased may be in Purgatory, even as motivation to pray. Or worse yet, to raise the possibility that he went to Hell, in which case prayers won’t help him.
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Shouldn’t the funeral homily include some kind of reminder to pray for the soul of the deceased, though? Perhaps not explicitly saying – hey, this person might be in purgatory – but certainly I think it’s appropriate to note in a homily something like “let us continue praying for the soul of X as we mourn and remember X.” I want the priest at my funeral one day to encourage mourners to continue to pray for my soul! I’ve been at funerals where the deceased has been basically canonized and the priest has outright said a person was in heaven. That’s awkward. And not theologically accurate…
 
Now that the Homily has been released I hope everyone who calumniated against the good Father will publicly apologize.

I thought this whole thing smelled fishy right from the beginning. I’m not going to say the family did this for attention but I hope they reflect on their actions.
 
The priest’s words were heartless during this time of mourning for the parents, family and friends. It is not for us to judge God’s will for this young man. If the parents had come to the priest in a private setting and asked for help in understanding, then maybe. Even then, it would be a huge mistake to say, as the priests position is a representation of Church authority, that the young man would most likely never be allowed in Heaven. Our God is a Just God, knowing everything in our heart, every moment of every day. Lord, we will never know the despair of this young man, but we pray for your forgiveness. Amen
 
I think most of us are still of the opinion that Father should not have given that homily at that funeral. It was insensitive. He should have known that the family was struggling and would not have been able to hear his words as anything other than a condemnation of their son.
 
13pollitos said:
I seriously doubt any Catholic sitting in a funeral Mass for a loved one will forget to pray for their soul. Prayers should be coming from a place of love, not out of fear. Most people having a Mass said for their loved one most certainly understands that or they would not feel the need to have that Mass. The Mass itself is a prayer, and a very powerful one! Most Catholics also are going to be having rosaries said for their loved one as well.
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I agree with this that Mass is a prayer!

However… I’ve noticed an increasing tendency among many people, yes even among Catholics, to assume that once a person dies they’re automatically going to heaven – assuming they were a reasonably “good person.” I’ve even been at funeral Masses where the priest outright said the person was in heaven. So yes, there were prayers for the deceased at the funeral Mass, but will the mourners continue praying for the soul of the deceased after the day of the funeral when a priest outright said the deceased was already in heaven? I’d hope so, but I don’t know.

Now, none of that is to say that the homily was necessarily prudent or the best choice of words. Particularly if Father told them he would discuss one thing, and then this kind of homily was sprung on them as a surprise. BUT – I’ve heard a homily that was substantially similar to Fr. LaCuesta’s, at a funeral Mass for a person who’d long struggled with mental illness and died by suicide. It was quite comforting for the family of that deceased person and those of us friends in attendance. Obviously that was not the case in this instance, and I really feel for this family. To hear all that as a surprise on the day you’re burying your son…

The news stories seemed to focus first on the football coach, who was asked to leave the funeral and then fired after making an insensitive social media post. There was a few more days before any news stories about the priest’s funeral homily showed up in the media. I do wonder why the family went public with the football coach story several days before the priest story. Unless they approached the media at the same time, but the media held the priest story?
 
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Too theological. It did not meet the needs of the family.

@0331, I felt the same as you when this thread began, but I see there is another side to the story. Grieving families need consolation and comfort, and like it or not, this homily on this occasion missed the mark.
 
Several times. I’m the OP of this thread and I posted the link to the text of the homily.
 
As my profile says, I’m a candidate.

I refer you to don_ruggero’s posts on this subject. He is a priest and theologian who spent many years teaching in seminaries:
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Shining a light on truth vs. comforting the grieving? Funeral homily in cases of suicide Apologetics
As a priest, I wish to say that I am horrified by the text of this homily. It is astonishing for its insensitivity. If I were not retired from the formation work I did over the decades, I would use it as an example of precisely what not to do inn a homily for a funeral. It fails in multiple points of modern homiletics as well as pastoral theology. I think the public statement of this priest’s archdiocese states well and succinctly the failure of this priest as well as the archdiocese’s effor…
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Keep reading to see the rest of his commentary. You might also consider reading the thread, so that you can understand the objections.

The homily is theologically sound, but it fails on several pastoral points.
 
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Heartless because he only added more suffering to what the parents and friends were already going through. None of us can ever really understand what drives a person to commit suicide, only God sees into our hearts.
 
mrsdizzyd said:
but it fails on several pastoral points.
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Cite the part(s) of the Homily that you find egregious.
willlman0830 said:
None of us can ever really understand what drives a person to commit suicide, only God sees into our hearts.
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The Priest said that in his Homily.
Beryllos said:
To that end, comment on the issues and not the person.
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It is important to know if the person in question is Catholic because perhaps they do not know Catholic theology.
 
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Ahjussi said:
Cite the part(s) of the Homily that you find egregious.
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I’m not going to sit here and rehash this entire thread. You can read the objections for yourself including my contributions to this thread.

The general thrust is that he started out condemning suicide and continued to use the word “suicide” repeatedly. This family was not in an emotional state to be able to hear this as anything other than an attack. All it takes is a bit of empathy to understand exactly how this homily failed.
 
I think the issue is that he mentions suicide repeatedly, and the family had asked him to memorialize their son’s life on earth, not his method of dying.

Although It’s not as bad as the media portrayed it, I can see why it would not be entirely comforting to a family grieving. They probably were shocked to hear the word suicide not once but several times, and that shock caused them to not hear the rest of the message about God’s mercy.

This would have been better said during the meetings with the family prior to the funeral if they expressed despair about their child’s suicide, not the public mass.
 
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You have not read the Homily or you are misrepresenting what it said:

You claim he started out condemning suicide. Here is how it actually started:
Is there any hope to offer in this moment? Must we only speak of our profound grief, our indescribable sorrow, even our anger and confusion at how such a thing could have happened? Is there any word from God that might break into our darkness like a ray of light? Yes, yes, a thousand times. If we Christians are right in believing that salvation belongs to Jesus Christ, that it does not come from us–and that our hand cannot stop what God allows for us, then yes, there is hope in eternity even for those who take their own lives.
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You said he continued to use the word “suicide” repeatedly. He actually used it 6 times. let us see those six times in context:
The finality of suicide makes this all the worse. You cannot make things right again. Neither can [REDACTED]. And this is much of the pain of it all. Things are left unresolved, even if it felt to [REDACTED] like this was the only way to resolve things. You want to turn the clock back and say, "Please don’t give up. We can work through this pain together. " But now you will have to work through this pain by yourselves, or with those close to you now who will need to lean on you even as you lean on them.
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That’s how much he loves us. Because of the all embracing sacrifice of Christ on the cross God can have mercy on any sin. Yes, because of his mercy, God can forgive suicide and heal what has been broken.
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Because God is merciful he makes allowance for the spiritual, mental, and emotional despair that leads to suicide. God is able to read the heart, to know the whole truth of a person’s life, and thereby to pass sentence with mercy. God knows something we must discipline ourselves to do in these moments – he knows not to judge a person’s entire life on the basis of the worst and last choice the person made.
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Nothing can separate us from the love of God, the great St. Paul assures us (in that Reading we just listened to). Nothing – including suicide.
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(continued)
 
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