Religious groups often unsure just how to deal with suicide

Stacy J. Willis

Friday, Nov. 23, 2001 | 12:52 p.m.

Linda Flatt's son, Paul, had a gambling problem. Sports betting. Lots of debt.

He got behind on a bank loan. He sold his belongings, however meager they were. He had some trouble with his girlfriend. He threatened, once, to commit suicide if she left. His girlfriend called his mother and told her about the threat.

Flatt sat him down and asked him, "Are you suicidal?"

"No, I was just kidding," he said.

A week later he was found dead in his apartment.

"I felt like I'd been slapped in the face," Flatt says. "It was a volitional death. I was so angry. I still feel it when I talk about it ..."

Flatt dealt with her grief by attending suicide survivors' meetings and by relying on her Christian faith, she said.

Surgeon General David Satcher, in his national call to action for suicide prevention, labeled churches "natural community helpers" for suicide survivors.

But religious organizations are often unclear how to deal with suicide. In fact, the shame surrounding suicide has its roots in religion.

Traditional Christian thought -- that taking one's own life is the ultimate affront to God -- sometimes perpetuates the stigma associated with suicide.

"Many Christians do not know how to respond to a suicide, and sometimes they inadvertently do more harm than good," Christianity Today magazine reported in the June 2000 cover story.

Catholicism has traditionally held that those who commit suicide cannot go to heaven and may not have a blessed burial.

"As Catholics, we hold that suicide is wrong," the Rev. Bob Stoekig of the Las Vegas Catholic Diocese said. "But that is evolving -- we wouldn't necessarily refuse burial to a person who committed suicide anymore."

Other faiths have similarly stern views of suicide: It is generally considered a sin in Judaism and Islam despite recent images of suicidal terrorists that the devout disavow.

"Suicide is not condoned in Islam," said Dr. Osama Haikal, president of Osama Haikal Islamic Academy in Las Vegas.

The Rev. Gene Appel of Central Christian Church, the valley's largest nondenominational church, said he began addressing suicide several years ago in sermons.

"It's complicated because it presents us with some challenging biblical questions: Is suicide a sin? Can a person who commits suicide still go to heaven?" Appel said in a tape-recorded 1997 suicide sermon he gave to the congregation of more than 2,000.

"There is a fear among almost everyone of mentioning the word 'suicide.' Are we supposed to talk about what really happened? It's complicated because often family members are struggling with embarrassment over the cause of death and guilt over what they could have done to prevent it."

Appel called on his congregation to reach out to each other, to talk openly with survivors to diminish the shame.

But Dorothy Bryant, Clark County Suicide Prevention Center president, said she doesn't support eliminating ic allxc shame.

"I realize this is controversial, and I certainly support increasing education about suicide. But I worry that without some of the stigma, people will turn to (suicide) more, and think it is an acceptable option," Bryant said.

"We don't want to swing the pendulum too far back."