Catholic association equips parishes nationwide to aid people with mental illness

September 2024

Our Mother of Mercy Catholic Church in Houston is among the parishes that have formed mental health ministries. Here, from left, Eva Mathews, Lucille Ford and Claire Shynett take part in a program called Healing Circle. Shynett is her church's mental health ministry coordinator.

 

 
Deacon Shoener

When Deacon Ed Shoener's daughter Katie made her first suicide attempt in 2005, his parish church "was the last place" he would have gone for help, he says. "The church didn't know what to do," he explains, when it came to supporting people with mental illness and their families.

He hopes the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers is changing that. The association offers parishes training, resources and connections to provide meaningful support to people who have mental illness. Any parish can access the association's resources.

As part of their work with a mental health ministry at Our Lady of Mount Carmel Parish in San Diego, Laurie Dusa and Esteban Quintana offer mental health resources outside the church. Dusa is a mental health ministry volunteer coordinator and Quintana is a consultant and ministry volunteer with the church's program.

 

 

Deacon Shoener partnered in founding the association in 2019, three years after his daughter took her own life at the age of 29.

Since the association's launch, about 2,700 people have accessed its services and resources. About 50 or 60 dioceses across the U.S. are represented in the informal network, as well as dioceses from 40 to 50 other countries. Hundreds of parishes within those U.S. dioceses have developed mental health ministries with the association's support.

Deacon Shoener's dream is that someday every parish across the U.S. will offer a mental health ministry. He says, "Ours is a really new ministry, but a core part of our ministry is to have (people impacted by mental illness) reassured that they are loved by God, that they are not abandoned, that they are not alone. Ours is a ministry that is about accompanying people."

Widespread mental illness
According to statistics from the National Alliance on Mental Illness, 22.8% of U.S. adults experienced mental illness in 2021 and 16.5% of U.S. youth aged 6 to 17 experienced a mental health disorder in 2016. Yet, for both the adults and youth, only about half received treatment. Further, mental illness can be linked with suicide.  NAMI says suicide is the second leading cause of death among people aged 10 to 14 and the third leading cause of death among those aged 15 to 24.

Bishop John Dolan helped establish mental health ministries in the Diocese of Phoenix. Here, at a Mass for survivors of suicide at a Phoenix church, Bishop Dolan joins a procession of participants who brought flowers in honor of loved ones lost to suicide. It is estimated that more than 1,000 people attended the service or viewed it online.

 

 

Even though mental illness is pervasive across the U.S., few parishes seemed to be prepared to address it effectively in the past, says Deacon Shoener, who lives in Scranton, Pennsylvania. Decades ago, when his daughter was struggling with bipolar disorder, there was a heavy stigma about mental illness — it often went undiscussed in and unaddressed by parishes. "When our daughter was diagnosed, we were worried — we didn't want people to know, but we later learned many people were in the same situation," Deacon Shoener says.

He adds that Catholic clergy do not always receive comprehensive training in mental health care. And, hospital chaplains are not required to receive extensive training in mental illness either, though efforts are underway to increase the training available to them. For instance, the University of San Diego has established the Catholic Institute for Mental Health Ministry that offers a behavioral health certificate for chaplains.

'Fear, ignorance and hurtful attitudes'
When his daughter died, Deacon Shoener wrote a profoundly personal and heartfelt obituary for the  Scranton Times-Tribune that spoke to the damaging way that people talk about those with mental illness. In part he wrote that, "in the case of mental illness there is so much fear, ignorance and hurtful attitudes that the people who suffer from mental illness needlessly suffer further." He decried how society derogatively labels people who are mentally ill and how it fails to appropriately address mental illness.

Veneranda Reyes, at left, and Louise Conners take part in a mental health ministry program offered by the St. Francis of Assisi Parish in San Jose, California.

 

 

"Please know that Katie was a sweet, wonderful person that loved life, the people around her — and Jesus Christ," he wrote.

Hundreds of thousands of people reacted to the obituary online and many reached out directly to Deacon Shoener. Some of the people who contacted him shared that their parishes were trying in isolation to address mental health.

It was evident there was a need for a more intentional, interconnected church effort, says Deacon Shoener. He says with a laugh that the overwhelming response to the obituary "was God's way to get this hard-headed guy from Scranton to do something."

A hunger for this ministry
Conversations that followed the obituary posting led to Deacon Shoener connecting with Bishop John Dolan, who was the auxiliary bishop for the San Diego diocese at that time and has since become bishop of the Diocese of Phoenix. Bishop Dolan has a passion for aiding people who have mental illness — his family has lost three siblings and a brother-in-law to suicide. He had been implementing a mental health ministry in the San Diego diocese.

Quintana prepares the materials he was helping to distribute on mental health awareness at Our Lady of Mount Carmel.

 

 

When they connected, Bishop Dolan and Deacon Shoener first focused on establishing the Catholic Institute for Mental Health Ministry at the Catholic University of San Diego. Launched in 2017, that institute develops mental health ministry training and education resources. After establishing the institute, Bishop Dolan and Deacon Shoener discussed the need for developing a broader, more comprehensive approach to ensure more dioceses and parishes had the resources to start their own ministries or to bolster the programs they already had launched.

The two men formed an advisory group of people with experience in mental health ministry. That group created the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers. Deacon Shoener is president of the association and heads a nine-member board that includes Bishop Dolan. The association has a four-member staff. It is funded by private donations.

Zahner

The association has gathered concepts from existing parish programs and developed training curriculum and materials. Parishes that wish to start a mental health ministry are encouraged to designate a point person and assemble a team to support the work. Once a parish program is built, those heading the program recruit parishioners to complete the training. The goal is to have numerous parishioners aware of the importance of mental wellness, know how best to approach those who are in need and offer support, and then be able to accompany them. That could include praying with them, keeping the conversation going over time to provide companionship, and pointing them to mental health resources and providers. Parishioners are not expected to provide mental health counseling or therapy themselves.

Growing network
The association holds networking calls and conferences and soon will begin hosting regional meetings. Deacon Shoener says the quick spread and uptake of the association's programming indicates that "people are hungry for" this type of ministry.

Barbara Zahner is a founding member of the association and also helped start mental health ministries in her home diocese of San Jose, California. A board-certified chaplain with experience in hospitals and hospices as well as nonprofit leadership, she says there is a national epidemic of loneliness and well-documented mental health challenges. She says these parish ministries can help parishioners be Christlike to people experiencing mental distress.

Saint Joachim Parish in Costa Mesa, California, has a mental health ministry, and this "Tree of Hope" is a representation of the work that is happening through the program.

 

She notes that she sees a natural connection between these parish programs and Catholic health facilities, and it would be good for them to work together. For instance, given that hospital discharge can be scary for people with mental illness and for people who lack support at home, Zahner says hospitals could work with parish mental health ministries. The ministries could link hospital patients being discharged home to a parish with parishioners who have been trained through the association's programs.

Paraphrasing the head of the nonprofit Los Angeles-based Homeboy Industries, a nonprofit focused on gang intervention, Zahner says, "People long to be safe, seen and cherished," and she says the parish ministries can help.

 

» You Are Not Alone: Statistics from The National Alliance on Mental Illness

 

 

Parishes tailor their mental health ministries to local needs

Hundreds of parishes across the U.S. have used resources from the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers to bolster their existing mental health ministries or to create new ones, and that roster of parishes is growing.

Often the parishioners leading these ministries have a personal connection to people with mental illness, and that link drives their commitment to the parish work.

Marisela B. Quinonez, at left, and Loan Dinh participate in an activity that was part of mental health ministry programming St. Francis of Assisi Parish in San Jose, California.

 

Some such ministries include:
  • Diocese of Madison, Wisconsin: The association has worked with Catholic Charities USA to develop "Whole Hearted," a program to train parishes in trauma awareness. The Diocese of Madison is using the resources. It offered a workshop to parishes in the spring to help attendees get a deeper understanding of trauma and its impact on mental and spiritual well-being, and they learned practical tools for helping themselves and others. Any diocese can adopt the Whole Hearted program. Information is available online.
  • Diocese of San Jose, California: About a decade ago, when three men died by suicide within the span of a month at her home parish in the San Jose diocese, Chaplain Barbara Zahner felt compelled to act. She formed a bereavement support group in her neighborhood — the family of one of the deceased men lived on her street. She then worked with local church contacts to create programming that San Jose parishes could use to develop their own mental health ministries. After moving to another parish, she continued networking with church contacts and helped to build out more ministries.

    One such ministry that she built, using support from the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers, is called "Listen with The Ear of The Heart." Started in 2020, the program is presented via videoconference Cohorts of parishioners learn to welcome the stranger, to engage in "holy listening," to be attentive to the needs of oneself and others, to practice self-care, and to accompany and pray with people who are suffering.
  • Diocese of Phoenix: Over much of the last decade, Bishop John Dolan has been exploring how best to engage parishes to address mental illness. He headed the Diocese of San Diego from 2017 until he became head of the Diocese of Phoenix in 2022. In San Diego, he helped found an institute at the Catholic University of San Diego to provide parishes with resources on aiding people with mental illness. At the diocese of Phoenix, he helped establish a diocesan office on mental health.

    Participants in Our Mother of Mercy's mental health ministry participate in one of the ministry's gatherings.

     

    That office educates parishes about mental illness and trains clergy to address mental health needs. The office also equips parishes to accompany people with mental illness, so that they do not fall through the cracks of the mental health system. The office undertakes advocacy efforts to press the government to better support people with mental illness.

    In a video about the program on the association's website, Bishop Dolan says the diocese's programming encourages people to share stories about how mental illness impacts them. He says his own family has been hit hard by the condition — three siblings and his brother-in-law died by suicide. Bishop Dolan says in the video that "no one should be forgotten, (God) knows our hearts and souls because we are His, He doesn't abandon us." He hopes parish ministries will help people recognize this.
  • Diocese of Orange, California: The diocese's pastoral center employs a mental health ministry coordinator to work with parishes to create programming around mental illness. The coordinator has created a website to house resources. The programming is tailored to meet the needs of the multiple ethnic groups that live in the diocese, including a large Vietnamese population. The coordinator works to do outreach in the many communities that make up the diocese, educating people on mental illness and engaging the parishes to come up with programming to support people with mental illness.

    In a video on the association website, a woman who had served as coordinator relates a story that conveys the importance of the work: A woman lost a loved one to suicide and in her grief, she prayed to God, "If you are there, give me a sign." Soon after, while driving, she saw a placard at an Orange parish, reading, "We Can Talk About Suicide." She pulled over, entered the church and came upon the parish's mental health ministry group, which happened to be meeting at the time. The group listened to her and prayed with her. She later joined that church.
  • Our Mother of Mercy Parish in Houston: This parish, which has a large population of Black parishioners, has customized the association's materials and programming to its congregation. Recognizing that mental health can be a taboo subject in Black culture, the parish worked with the National Alliance on Mental Illness and the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers to create materials tailored to the parishioners. The mental health ministry at Our Mother of Mercy includes awareness-building, education, training on listening skills and advocacy. The parish also holds well-attended "healing circles" that function as support groups. Also, the parish publishes regular content in its church bulletin on mental health.

To view videos of some of these programs as well as videos on ministries in Washington; Kansas City, Missouri; Baltimore; and Costa Mesa, California, visit catholicmhm.org/ministry-stories.


Bishop conference's mental health campaign encourages parish mobilization

Recognizing the urgent need to address the mental health crisis in the U.S., the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops is undertaking a "National Catholic Mental Health Campaign."

Launched last year on World Mental Health Day — Oct. 10 — the campaign seeks to raise awareness about mental illness, remove its stigma, advocate for those who struggle to receive help, and inspire a national conversation around the topic of mental health.

To mobilize the Catholic Church to respond to the mental health crisis, the bishops' conference provides resources at usccb.org/mentalhealth. This is an ongoing, year-round campaign.

On the website is an introductory video, a novena that people can pray for those impacted by mental illness, materials parishes can use to observe World Mental Health Day, and recordings of roundtables on mental health. Those roundtables were discussions among mental health experts, bishops and other Catholic ministry leaders.

As part of the campaign, the USCCB is encouraging parishes to promote the campaign and its goals, initiate the praying of the novena, and integrate mental health topics into homilies. The bishops suggest this activity be tied to World Mental Health Day. The bishops also encourage parishes to explore ways to start a mental health ministry in their community.

Church leaders who helped to launch the campaign are Archbishop Borys Gudziak of the Ukrainian Catholic Archeparchy of Philadelphia, chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development; and Bishop Robert Barron of Winona-Rochester, chairman of the USCCB's Committee on Laity, Marriage, Family Life, and Youth.

CHA Advocacy Director Clay O'Dell serves on an advisory board that helped to create the campaign. CHA long has prioritized mental and behavioral health and advocates for mental health care to have parity with medical care access and coverage.

CHA notes on its website: "access to mental and behavioral health services is a serious issue currently facing the U.S. health care system. Even as the nation has taken great strides over the past several years to expand coverage and drastically reduce the number of uninsured, access to mental health services and substance use disorder treatments continues to lag behind." CHA's advocacy team is working to address this concern. Information on CHA's work in this area is available at chausa.org/mentalhealthservices.

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