BURIAL OF SUICIDES

Shannon News, 27 July 1928, Page 2

BURIAL OF SUICIDES

THE FORM OF SERVICE,

RULING BY A BISHOP.

QUESTION OF DERANGEMENT,

A ruling was given recently by the Bishop of St. Edmundsbury and Ips wich with regard to the form of the burial service to be used in the case of suicides. He directs clergymen to use the usual form and procedure where a jury finds that" a person has taken Mb life while mentally deranged. Writing on the subject in the Diocesan Magazine for Suffolk, the bishop says:—"On one or .two. recent occasions some trouble has occurred through the action of a clergyman who has been called upon to perform the burial service over the body of one who had taken his own life, r and wBo has not regarded himself as at liberty to pass over the direction of the-Pray-er Book, which says that the ordinary office is not to be used for any who 'have laid violent hands upon themselves.'

"This direction appears to be quite explicit, and I have no doubt that any clergyman using some other form has. done so in the belief that he was not! at liberty to use the customary office and procedure. I wish -to state quite definitely that the Rubric does not apply in the case of one who has taken his life while deranged, whether permanently or temporarily.

"Refusal to use the customary service implies a censure upon, and, consequently, the recognition of responsibility on the part of the person who has died. But a person who h not sane is not responsible, and, under those circumstances, both he and the relatives, who have the special shock of the occurrence to bear, deserve a special measure .of pity and sympathy, and everything that we can do to soften by a peculiar emphasis of our. faith in God's love the unavoidable pain of the event. "The question whether or so, tie. person who died was sane or not ia not; for the clergyman to determine. The law is quite clear on the point. Persons of insane mind, not being deemed responsible for their acts are not to be understood thereby (that is, by the words-of the Rubric) to have laid violent hands upon themselves.' Of the state of mind of those who died by. their own hands the coroner's jury are the proper judges, and, as the law in reference to other matters considers those only as having laid violent hands on themselves upon whom a verdict of felo de.se has been returned, it cannot be supposed that the minister would be permitted to exercise his own judgment in such a matter. "I, therefore, direct any clergyman who may be called upon to officiate in such a case to use the usual form and procedure, and, if he is in any doubt, and time permits, to refer the matter to me."