Pastoral Suicide

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Pastoral Suicide
Comments by Frank - 20 Jul 2009

Dear Friends:

As a retired pastor, I thought I should join in on this discussion, and even though I have never contemplated suicide, I am very familiar with the pressures and workings of the Church.

I never held on to the loneliness that is all too often associated pastoral duties, because I have had a wonderfully supportive wife for the past 48 years, but I had more of a problem letting go of the frustrations and constant sense of mourning that is associated with having a truly compassionate ministry that includes the animals.

The Church did have support groups which we were always encouraged to attend, but I learned very quickly that you could express almost anything you wanted to, that is, unless it involved animal issues of compassion. If you wanted to discuss killing them and eating them, they would happily to join in, but if I mentioned the horrors associated with the raising and killing of animals, I was ridiculed, which is the same way these clergy people dealt with their parishioners who cared about animals. And I can well understand how a depressed animal compassionate person would feel in such a surrounding.

Some of the hardest of heart people I ever encountered were my fellow clergy, and the hierarchy were the worst.

And eventually this led to my retirement from formal church ministry, so that we could concentrate on our internet ministry.

In the Love of the Lord,

Frank