A bishop, in the Roman Catholic tradition, is a teacher.
But the lesson Bishop John Joseph of Pakistan taught with such drama earlier this month is a strange one. And the silent lesson imparted by his fellow bishops since then is even stranger.
On May 6, Bishop Joseph went to a darkened corridor of a courthouse in the town of Sahiwal and shot himself in the head.
His comments beforehand and a note he left behind made it clear that Joseph intended his suicide as a protest against Pakistani blasphemy laws, which have been used to persecute the Christian minority in that country.
Because it had the potential to set off rioting, Joseph’s death was widely reported around the world, as were the protests and massive funeral that followed. The coverage delved deeply into the controversy over the blasphemy laws and repeatedly noted Joseph’s courage in opposing them.
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You can look long and hard at stories, however, without finding a hint of the notion that suicide is wrong. No church official acknowledges it, no reporter poses the question. The Vatican is silent.
A bishop commits suicide, and nobody remarks on his decision. It may be one of the most curious tales yet from what Pope John Paul II has called the “culture of death.”
For Catholics, suicide used to be one of the biggies, a mortal sin. To kill oneself was to assert individual human will over God’s will, to turn one’s back not only on self and family, but on natural law and the life-giver himself.
“Years ago somebody who committed suicide would not have been given a funeral,” said Rev. Thomas Nairn, a professor of ethics at the Catholic Theological Union. “In the abstract, nothing has changed.”
Indeed the official 1994 “Catechism of the Catholic Church” still says, “We are stewards, not owners, of the life God has entrusted to us. It is not ours to dispose of.”
What has changed, Nairn points out, is that the church now gives the practical benefit of the doubt to those who commit suicide, with good reason.
For suicide to be a sin, Catholicism teaches, it must be voluntarily chosen. As science advances, the church has acknowledged that many, perhaps most people who kill themselves are driven to it by mental illnesses over which they have no control.
“We cannot see the motivation inside the person, and have a much more difficult time these days saying with certainty who is a bad person or a sinner,” Nairn observed.
So if a troubled parishioner commits suicide, the church acknowledges that God knows a good deal more about that person’s sin and salvation than anybody around here, and puts its pastoral energy into caring for the survivors.
But Bishop John Joseph was not a troubled parishioner; he was a politically prominent church father who seemed to be claiming for himself the mantle of martyrdom, a venerable tradition in the church.
Ignoring the moral questions of his chosen death would seem to undercut church teaching dangerously, at a time when it is fighting an uphill battle against do-your-own-thing ethics.
“We should not call it a suicide,” Archbishop Emmanuel Yousef Mani of the Pakistani diocese of Lahore was quoted as saying of Bishop Joseph. “He sacrificed his life fighting against injustice.”
From an ethical point of view, the archbishop seems to suggest that the end–fighting injustice–justifies the means–suicide.
From a theological point of view, the archbishop seems to suggest that Joseph’s life was his own to sacrifice.
If the church were to allow either of those propositions, how could it argue against the terminal cancer patient who wants to end his life a few weeks early, or the doctor who wants to help? What would it say to the woman who believes that aborting a child might save her life, literally or figuratively?
Yet Pope John Paul II did not publicly comment on his archbishop’s remarks or his bishop’s suicide.
Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J., speaking for the United States bishops’ conference, released an official statement that stopped at shock and dismay.
Meanwhile, the leading bishops of Asia were all gathered at the Vatican in a high-level meeting to discuss the particular challenges they face in promoting the faith. Joseph had been scheduled to join them and make a presentation on religious fundamentalism and violence.
His suicide presented those bishops with a worldwide audience and an unusually focused opportunity to teach that suicide is wrong and life is sacred, even under the most trying of circumstances. They could have spoken with the authority of first-hand experience; they could have demonstrated that it was possible to show compassion for Joseph without sacrificing moral clarity.
Instead, they observed the bishop’s death with a moment of silence.
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