Within the framework of World Suicide Prevention Day, the Health Pastoral Commission of the Argentine Episcopal Conference made public a “fraternal and urgent called” before this reality that claims a compromised response.
“Suicide continues to be a deep wound in our world. Every 40 seconds, a person takes his life in some part of the planet, ”says the commission at the beginning of his messagewith data from the World Health Organization that reveal a figure of more than 720,000 people killed per year for this cause.
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“In Argentina, more than 3,300 people die every year, reality that hurts and challenges dramatically,” he laments, exposing data from the National Epidemiological Bulletin, collected in the Adhesion project to the World Day for the Suicide Prevention of the Argentine Senate.
Within that framework, he considers that “these data, as cold as forceful, demand from us a compromised, supportive and hopeful response.”
“As pastoral agents and believing community, we are called not only to remember that life is a gift from God, but also to take care of it and promote it with greater force than ever, with the Lord’s promise: ‘I have come to have life and have it in abundance’”, Says the text.
In the name of the Church, it exposes the intention of “being an open house, where each person can experience the mercy of God and the fraternal containment of his brothers”, while “a community in which we can share our vulnerabilities without fear, and find a support in the listening of the other, in prayer and in closeness.”
From the Pastoral of Health, and within the framework of the Jubilee, they remember that “hope is possible, but is not built in solitude, but in communion” and “is strengthened in the community, with the presence of the resurrected man and with solicitous and reciprocal help.”
That is why they make a special call to all parishes and Catholic communities “to continue being places where silence breaks with listening, where loneliness dissipates with closeness and where no one is judged by their pain.”
Likewise, they invite, on this day, “we raise a prayer for the victims of this evil and their families, pleading with the Lord to grant us listening and discernment to recognize the symptoms of risk and be able to intervene in a prompt and effective way at the service of life.”
“That this retirement time strengthens in us the gift of hope, that responds to the deepest thirst of the human heart: the certainty that no one is alone!” They emphasize.
Finally, they propose to pray together with the following plea:
“Lord of life, source of hope, in this jubilee year that summons us to live the light of the Gospel, we ask you to unfounded in all hearts the gift of hope.
That we know how to recognize the fragility when it appears and, with courage and tenderness, be close to the one who suffers. Give us eyes that see the pain of the other, ears that they hear without judging, hands that hold with compassion.
We ask you to accompany the families that suffer from the loss of a loved one with your goodness.
That they never feel alone, and that in each gesture our promise comes that life is a divine gift, always worthy of being lived. Amen”.
Julieta Villar
I am a journalist, a graduate in Communication from the National University of La Matanza in Argentina. I have work experience in non -governmental organizations. Since 2016 I dedicate myself to Catholic journalism, first in the Argentine Catholic Information Agency (AICA) and, since 2022, as a correspondent for ACI Press for Argentina, Chile, Uruguay and Bolivia.