Chicago Archdiocese Dedicates First U.S. Catholic Memorial to Suicide Victims
The Archdiocese of Chicago has dedicated the «At Peace» memorial at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, the first of its kind by a U.S. archdiocese, honoring those who died by suicide and their families. The memorial reflects a broader shift in Catholic pastoral practice, from the denial of funeral rites under the 1917 Code of Canon Law to the compassion expressed in the 1992 Catechism and by Pope Leo XIV.
The Archdiocese of Chicago has dedicated a memorial to the lives lost to suicide and to their surviving families, a step the archdiocese describes as the first of its kind by any U.S. archdiocese. The «At Peace» memorial stands at Queen of Heaven Catholic Cemetery, a site that is also home to the world's largest Catholic mausoleum. It was dedicated in June in honor of the Rev. Charles Rubey, who founded the LOSS Program — Loving Outreach to Survivors of Suicide — through Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Chicago in 1979.
Rubey, now 86, traces the ministry to a conversation with two women who had asked their parish priest to pray for relatives who had killed themselves. At the time, the Catholic Church barred funeral rites and burial on consecrated ground for those who died by suicide. Rubey recalls that the priest told the women their loved one was in hell. He disagreed, reassuring them that their relatives were with God. He went on to bless bridges, railroad tracks and basements where people had taken their lives, and his counseling service has accompanied grieving families for more than four decades.
The memorial was designed by Rubey and Bishop Lawrence Sullivan, vicar general of the Chicago archdiocese, during the COVID-19 pandemic, when mental health issues came to the forefront. It features sculptures of an angel and bronze doves and is intended to offer consolation to people of all faiths. Sullivan said the location was chosen deliberately so that the memorial would not be hidden away. «We did not want this memorial hidden away and we were intentional in every detail,» he said when the memorial was announced. «This is not something we are ashamed of.»
The shift the memorial embodies has deep roots in Catholic law and teaching. Until a 1917 church law was revised in 1983, those who died by suicide were denied Catholic burial on consecrated grounds. James Keenan, a theology professor at Boston College, said the church long believed its adamant position would dissuade people from suicide. He traces a change in attitude to the reforms of the Second Vatican Council in the 1960s and to the Catechism of the Catholic Church approved in 1992. That document states that suicide is contrary to God's love, but adds that «grave psychological disturbances, anguish, or grave fear of hardship, suffering, or torture can diminish the responsibility of the one committing suicide,» and that «we should not despair of the eternal salvation of persons who have taken their own lives.»
Pope Leo XIV, who was born in Chicago, has dedicated some of his monthly prayer intentions to people suffering from mental health problems and suicidal thoughts. He has called on the church to become «a safe space where everyone has a place — a community that accompanies and never excludes, that listens without judging and draws near without fear.» The Rev. James Martin, editor-at-large of the Jesuit magazine America, said the church's approach mirrors that of the broader society, with more sympathy for all affected by suicide. «To be able to extend pastoral care to the family members is extremely important, and to not make them feel any sense of shame or isolation, or judgment on them from the church,» he said.
Among those who attended the June dedication was Rabbi Marianne Novak, who joined LOSS after her 18-year-old daughter, Batsheva Chaya, died by suicide in 2017. She said it was important to have a place where people could remember their loved ones in a loving way, rather than focusing on how they died. The memorial's dedication also follows a painful episode in Michigan, where the priest officiating the 2018 funeral of 18-year-old Maison Hullibarger questioned whether the athlete and honors student would reach heaven. The Archdiocese of Detroit apologized, saying an unbearable situation had been made even more difficult. Maison's mother sued the priest and the archdiocese, but the courts sided with the priest on First Amendment grounds.
Rubey said the Chicago memorial signals a complete turnaround in how the church embraces families who have lost a loved one to suicide. «They're no longer condemned or thought to be in hell,» he said. Catholic teaching still considers suicide a grave sin, but it acknowledges that mental health problems can lead people to take their own lives and holds that salvation remains possible.
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