Archbishop Gudziak: As bishops tackle mental health crisis, parishes can bring comfort through community

As the U.S. Catholic bishops begin to tackle the issue of mental health amid a national crisis, parishes can ease the pain of mental illness by “helping people to be together” in community and solidarity, said Metropolitan Archbishop Borys A. Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia.

The archbishop spoke with OSV News Nov. 15, between sessions of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ annual fall plenary assembly Nov. 13-16 in Baltimore.

In October, the U.S. bishops launched the National Catholic Mental Health Campaign, led by Archbishop Gudziak, who chairs the USCCB’s Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development, and Bishop Robert E. Barron of Winona-Rochester, Minn., chairman of the USCCB’s Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life and Youth.

The USCCB campaign, announced Oct. 10 to coincide with World Mental Health Day, was developed in collaboration with several organizations, among them Catholic Charities USA, the Catholic Health Association, the National Catholic Partnership on Disability, the U.S. Society of St. Vincent de Paul, the National Federation for Catholic Youth Ministry, the National Catholic Network de Pastoral Juvenil Hispana, the National Institute for Ministry with Young Adults, and the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers.

While the campaign is still in its early stages, one of its initial goals is simply to “encourage people to recognize this illness not as a condemnation, not as a punishment, but something that is to be touched by the Lord and embraced by the community,” Archbishop Gudziak told OSV News, speaking ahead of his update to the bishops on the campaign.

The acceptance and support of parish members can provide tremendous solace to those who suffer with mental illness — whose numbers total more than one in five adults in the U.S., according to the Centers for Disease Control, Archbishop Gudziak noted in his address to the bishops.

“There’s nothing worse, when somebody has a mental illness, than to be rejected and isolated,” Archbishop Gudziak told OSV News. “Dealing with mental illness is not easy. There is still a lot of stigma. Nobody wants to be in the category of crazy.”

The USCCB campaign began with a novena focusing on particular aspects of mental health, including the impact of stigma, social relationships and factors such as racism and poverty. Saints and others invoked during the novena include St. Dymphna, patron of those with mental illness; St. Martin de Porres, who experienced racial discrimination throughout his life; and Dorothy Day, a servant of God who twice attempted suicide as a young woman.

“We want this whole thing to be accompanied by prayer,” Bishop Barron said in his address to the assembly.

The campaign’s second stage is “more educational,” and aims to create in-person and online “structured conversations” among bishops, clinicians, psychiatrists, psychologists, social workers and pastoral experts, Bishop Barron said.

He said in the third stage of the campaign, bishops will seek to “empower Catholics everywhere to advocate for effective legislation that will expand resources for mental health in the U.S.”

“The issue is bipartisan,” Bishop Barron added. “We’ve either experienced issues ourselves, or we know someone who carries the burden of depression, anxiety, loneliness, grief or other form of mental illness.”

“On a personal note, the suffering of those impacted by the mental health crisis matters deeply to me,” said Archbishop Gudziak, noting that one of his archeparchy’s priests recently took his own life at age 44, leaving behind a wife and child.

Archbishop Gudziak noted that Bishop John P. Dolan of Phoenix also has “spoken and written eloquently about the mental health issues and suicides” in his own family.

Responding to the update from Archbishop Gudziak and Bishop Barron, Bishop Dolan shared with the assembly that he had lost three siblings and a brother-in-law through suicide, with one sister ending her life on Oct. 10 of last year.

“That you opened up the (mental health) novena on that day (last month) was particularly personally moving to me,” Bishop Dolan told those assembled.

Simply “having that conversation” about mental illness and suicide “has opened up doors for people,” said Bishop Dolan. “They’re coming out and saying that this stigma needs to be erased.”

“We’re particularly concerned about the mental health state of adolescents,” Archbishop Gudziak said, adding that “almost all indicators of poor mental health among high schoolers increased over the past decade.”

In 2021, U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy issued an advisory noting that recent data showed a substantial spike in mental health challenges among young people. That same year, the Centers for Disease Control found that almost 60 percent of female high school students and close to 70 percent of students who identify as LGBQ+ had “experienced persistent feelings of sadness or hopelessness” during the previous year, with almost 25 percent of the females making a suicide plan, and close to 25 percent of the LGBQ+ students actually attempting suicide.

Bishop Barron told the bishops that in his largely online Word on Fire apostolate, he has seen “how social media weighs on the young adults who engage there.

“Their experience of loneliness, isolation (and) anxiety is heartbreaking, and much of that is exacerbated … by social media,” said Bishop Barron. “In our committee work at the USCCB, we’ve tracked the toll it takes on families and young people, in particular the steady increase in suicide and suicide attempts among teens and college students.”

Data also “reveals disparate mental health outcomes based on race,” said Archbishop Gudziak in his address. “We must pay particular attention to these differences in our pastoral work and advocacy efforts.”

Compounding the issue is “the shortage of mental health resources,” he told the bishops.

The campaign update from Archbishop Gudziak and Bishop Barron prompted insights and suggestions from a number of bishops.

Several called for an increase in the number of Catholic mental health professionals qualified to address mental illness holistically, through psychiatric, psychological and spiritual treatment modalities.

Culturally sensitive care in a patient’s native language and strengthening family bonds also are essential, said several bishops.

Also key to the church’s efforts are training seminarians, as future priests, to respond compassionately and wisely to parishioners with mental illness.

“As pastors, we are not mental health professionals, but we can be mental health ministers,” Archbishop Gudziak said in his address.

While the effort has “a long way to go” in the face of the National Catholic Mental Health Campaign “seeks to offer hope,” Archbishop Gudziak told OSV News. “The Lord is a healer. … And we want to bring each other to the healer. We also want to become healers ourselves in Christ’s image.”

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