{"id":87314,"date":"2026-10-10T07:15:21","date_gmt":"2026-10-10T11:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/?p=87314"},"modified":"2026-10-10T07:15:21","modified_gmt":"2026-10-10T11:15:21","slug":"first-suicide-memorial-by-a-us-archdiocese-signals-a-compassionate-shift-by-the-catholic-church","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/first-suicide-memorial-by-a-us-archdiocese-signals-a-compassionate-shift-by-the-catholic-church\/","title":{"rendered":"First Suicide Memorial By A US Archdiocese Signals A Compassionate Shift By The Catholic Church"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>From <em>Associated Press:<\/em><\/p>\n<p>The Rev. Charles Rubey recalls the moment when he realized Catholic priests needed to do a better job supporting families of those who died by suicide.<\/p>\n<p>Two women told Rubey they had asked their parish priest to pray for family members who had killed themselves. At that time, the Catholic Church banned funeral rites and burial on consecrated grounds for those who died by suicide. Rubey says the women told him: \u201cthe first thing out of the priest\u2019s mouth was: \u2018Well, you know, your loved one is in hell.\u2019\u201d\u00a0 \u00a0But Rubey disagreed with the damning judgment. Seeking to ease the pain, he reassured them: \u201cThey\u2019re with God!\u201d The Chicago archdiocese recognized Rubey\u2019s work this year by dedicating in his honor a memorial to the lives lost to suicide and their surviving families. The archdiocese says the \u201cAt Peace\u201d memorial at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery is the first of its kind by any U.S. archdiocese.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>From Associated Press: The Rev. Charles Rubey recalls the moment when he realized Catholic priests needed to do a better.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-87314","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-news","entry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87314","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87314"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87314\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":87315,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87314\/revisions\/87315"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87314"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87314"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/spiritdaily.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87314"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}