There is the story in the news about a Colorado family angry with the Catholic Church over counseling and conversion therapy that they claim played a role in a young woman’s suicide. Alana Chen was, according to all accounts, a beautiful lady, a talented musician and an avid Catholic. As a teenager she thought about becoming a nun. When she questioned her sexuality, she sought out priests at the parish that ministered to students at Colorado University. The bishop assigned the Sisters for Life to mentor students in the cause of life and chastity. Against her wishes, the young woman’s mother said that the sisters convinced her daughter to take conversion therapy. Her mother interpreted the religious intervention (counseling and therapy) as an extended “emotional and religious abuse.” Alana became increasingly “depressed, distraught, and suicidal.” At 21 she had formerly attempted suicide and three years later apparently succeeded. I cannot imagine the pain that her mother and family experienced and still must face each day without her. While left unsaid, I have to think that the priests and sisters involved deeply grieve her loss as well. Most priests are haunted men, always praying for and unable to forget those whom they feel they have failed.
St. Thomas Aquinas Catholic Center in Boulder released the following statement regarding the accusations:
“We are devastated over the death of Alana Chen and cannot begin to imagine the pain and grief of her family and friends. Our prayers will continue to be with them during this incredibly difficult time. For those of us who had an opportunity to know Alana, we will remember her as a young woman who was eager to serve God and others and had a tremendous love of the poor. She will be greatly missed. Striving to be a community who welcomes anyone and everyone as Jesus did, we reject any practices that are manipulative, forced, coercive or pseudo-scientific. We believe that every person is a beloved child of God and should be treated with dignity, mercy, and reverence.”
I hope that she has found the peace that alluded her in this world. Rest in Peace.
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Blogger Priest 
I do not know how you can be so positive and soft about a person who commits suicide. Suicide for whatever reason is a mortal sin. I do not buy that such an act of self-murder can be excused for psychological reasons. Most people who kill themselves are distressed and trying to run away from something— so what? Killing is killing. I refuse to feel sorry for what is moral cowardice. It is also an unforgiveable sin as it makes repentance impossible. You and the modern church are quick to look for hope where none exists. I am sick of funerals that eulogize such people as in heaven. If I had my way they would not even get church funerals or be buried in consecrated ground. The act of murder utterly dishonors God who is the source of all life. It is a grievous sin to throw this gift back into his face. Clergy should tell the hard truth. Your loved one is not in heaven and is not even in purgatory. The person who has killed him or herself is now suffering the eternal fires of hell. Otherwise the justice of God would be a sham.
Optimism in this regard is another symptom of the current tendency to canonize even the worst of sinners and to presume that pretty much everyone sneaks into heaven. It is longstanding Christian teaching, from both Scripture and private revelation that the majority of folks go to hell. The sin of presumption is even observed by those who acknowledge the ancient doctrine that “outside the Church there is no salvation.” Some suppose that since they were baptized as Catholics that they have a free ticket to heaven. But faith can sour and one can forfeit sanctifying grace through the commission of even one single mortal sin. What does this mean? It is likely that most if not all non-Christians are doomed to perdition. Despite the lie of ecumenism, Catholicism can learn nothing from false religions where the deities are demons. The home of demons is hell. Heretics are also outside the juridical “true” Church and will burn for their rebellion. Catholics cannot pray with Protestants or associate with heretical worship. Otherwise, we will share their lot. Freedom of religion is a lie; error has no rights. The pretension of ignorance will hold no reign before the divine tribunal.
The unprecedented optimism has infected the official catechism promulgated by the Catholic Church. Children are often left unbaptized because there is a deadly presumption that a good God would not condemn an innocent child. However, we are born in sin. No one is innocent. The early Church Fathers and even St. Augustine, himself, taught that unbaptized children, prior to the age of reason, were cast into hell. Salvation is a gift. No one deserves it. Apart from Christ, no one can merit it. This is one of the reasons that whole households (including babies) were baptized in apostolic times. It may be that the philosophical concessions made by St. Thomas are correct in that aborted and miscarried babies go to limbo where they are naturally happy but forever deprived of the beatific vision. Lest this seem satisfactory, we must remember that the loss of the beatific vision is a chief element in the definition of hell. All the scholastics have done is to imagine that babies will know a less painful region of Gehenna. Yes, neglect the baptism and faith formation of your children and you will forever deprive them of seeing God in heaven!
We should take to heart what the Blessed Virgin showed the Fatima visionaries: “Mary opened her hands once more, as she had done the two previous months. The rays of light appeared to penetrate the earth, and we saw, as it were, a vast sea of fire. Plunged in this fire, we saw the demons and the souls of the damned. The latter were like transparent burning embers, all blackened or burnished bronze, having human forms. They were floating about in that conflagration, now raised into the air by the flames which issued from within themselves, together with great clouds of smoke. Now they fell back on every side like sparks in huge fires, without weight or equilibrium, amid shrieks and groans of pain and despair, which horrified us and made us tremble with fright.” Those who try to escape the pain they feel in this life are only embracing a far worse suffering. They have yet to really what genuine pain is about. The infinite dishonor of almighty God through serious sin is deserving of eternal torment and punishment. Otherwise, there is no true justice and the reality of God as God becomes questionable. It is no wonder that a growing atheism has precipitated a disavowal of hell or feigned believers argue that no one goes there.
While your post speaks of the poor girl as a good Catholic, you failed to say that she was buried on Sunday, December 15 from Saint Ambrose “Episcopal” Church in Boulder. Even if her death were an accident, she did not receive the benefits from the Church’s public prayer and Eucharist. (The Episcopalians have neither a valid priesthood nor a spiritually effective Eucharist.)
Indeed, conversion “therapy” can be fatal. Just leave people alone.
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