[WARNING: This post contains a graphic discussion of suicide. Please do not read if that subject disturbs you. Otherwise, you may proceed.]
Some years ago, I was asked to officiate at the funeral of a man who had taken his own life. For the sake of this story, we will call the man John. John was a beloved coach at a local, private high school who had been dealing with depression for many years.
As I prepared for the service, several family members told me John’s parents were devout Roman Catholics. As a result, these family members believed, John’s parents would have an especially tough time coping with his death. They believed the Catholic church had an unusually strict teaching about the disposition of the eternal soul following suicide. Because of this teaching, these family members felt, their son’s death would be nearly unbearable for John’s mother and father.
After the funeral, I decided to go visit John’s parents. I wanted to see if there was anything I could do or say to comfort them. I could not imagine the compounding effect of the grief of losing a child to suicide, on top of believing he was condemned for eternity because of the way he died.
I was not sure I had much to offer them in the way of comfort, but I wanted to at least go, listen, be present, and grieve with them.
After we had talked for a few minutes, John’s father excused himself. He left the room and came back a little while later with an article he had clipped from a prominent Roman Catholic newspaper. It was written by a Catholic priest and discussed the church’s present-day views on suicide and the soul.
The author drew a parallel between a chronically depressed person taking his or her life and the people who decided to jump from the top of the World Trade Center following the 9/11 terror attacks. I apologize I cannot name the author or quote his words accurately, but the gist of his point was this: the common belief of the people on the roof of the World Trade Center and the depressed person is that they feel they are facing a humanly impossible dilemma; Either choose to burn alive or plunge to their death.
The author concluded by saying something like, “If we have never personally felt the raging fire of chronic depression in our minds, we have no right to condemn the person who chooses to escape that fire by taking their own life.”
I was utterly dumbfounded. This priest shed a light on suicide that opened my eyes, but more importantly, offered those grieving parents a life-changing perspective on the most difficult event of their lives.
I do not tell this story as a way of relating yet another fascinating chapter in my storied ministry career. I tell it as a prelude to what I really want to talk about in this post. I really want to talk about Virginia Giuffre. And Jeffrey Epstein. And Ghislaine Maxwell. And Andrew Mountbatten Windsor. And any of the other sexual deviant monsters who contributed to Virginia Giuffre’s abuse and ultimate demise.
Virginia, as you might be aware, wrote a memoir about her life as a sexual commodity under the control of Epstein and Maxwell. The book is called Nobody’s Girl and is widely credited as being a key factor in helping bring those two degenerates to justice.
I have never been and will never be the victim of sexual predation. And so, I cannot possibly imagine the fear, shame, humiliation, and utter despair that goes along with that life. Likewise, I cannot imagine what kind of heroic courage it takes – once a person breaks free from those shackles – to relive that horrific experience by testifying against her tormentors in court, and then daring to document that experience in a book.
As Virginia discovered, pursuing justice through the myriad obstacles our system erects in the path of victims of sexual assault can exact a heavy price. On April 25 of this year, she decided she could no longer tolerate the inferno that raged inside her. On that day, Virginia Giuffre died by her own hand.
In 2019, one of her assailants – the main one – chose to end his own miserable life in a jail cell. Another is serving a life sentence in jail. But countless others who were part of the destruction of that beautiful young life are still walking around completely free and unfettered… seemingly immune from the consequences of their actions. Shielded from the mechanisms of justice.
I pray that justice will ultimately be served for every single person who was part of that circle of perversion… regardless of their position, their political affiliation, their wealth, or their influence. And when they are finally tried and convicted, I cannot imagine a punishment for them that would remotely approach the level of pain they inflicted on their manifold young victims.
For now, though, I only have my tears, hope, and rage to hold on to.
O Lord, in your mercy…
Russellings of the Spirit 
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