Healing process continues for parish after pastor's suicide

Karen Girard reported in the November 24, 2005 Catholic Herald on how St. Dominic Parish in Sheboygan is coping with the July 30th suicide of its pastor, Father Jim Jarumbo (see this earlier post). It's coping by dealing with suicide as entirely a mental health issue, without any real moral issue involved.

The article includes this from "Fr. Guy Gurath, pastor of Newburg's Holy Trinity Parish and active in grief ministry."

He told a story in which a mother was filled with grief over the loss of her son who had flung himself off a bridge. She could accept his death, she told a priest, but not the thought he'd be in hell for his action. The priest, consoling the mother, told her: between the bridge and the water, your son prayed 'God have mercy,' and God did.

There was a time that would have been expressed as a hope.