A DONEGAL priest has made an emotional plea for people contemplating suicide to seek help.
Father Eamonn McLaughlin was speaking at a special Mass at St Eunan’s Cathedral in Letterkenny on Sunday for families bereaved through suicide.
And he told the congregation that when people had problems with their eyes, they went to an optician – and people feeling down and depressed should go to someone for help.
Fr McLaughlin also condemned the abuse of children, accusing the church of failing to handle the issue properly.
He told people contemplating taking their own lives that “life will be darker and more painful without you.”
He went on: “Over the last five months of my being here in Letterkenny I have encountered on an almost daily basis someone talking about suicide.
“As Christians we cannot allow ourselves to breath in the air of hopelessness
“Even the smell of slurry is better than the odour of doom and gloom.”
He said Irish society needed a ‘spring clean’.
“We must let the fresh air of honesty and courage fill our lungs,” said Fr McLaughlin.
He said he had asked people affected by suicide for advice before the Mass.
One person told him to advise parents to tell their children they loved them, saying this was better than giving them material possessions.
“You can lavish them with all the gifts you want and this may be your way of showing your love but please tell them,” said the priest.
He said children should do the same to their parents.
Fr McLaughlin said another person who had contemplated suicide had warned of the dangers of alchohol and drug abuse.
“They are not your friends,” he said.
“They will only pick you up and slam you down. This was someone who was at death’s door who gave us this advise.”
He said there should be no ‘glorifying’ at a funeral Mass for someone who has taken their own life.
Fr McLaughlin said someone asked him what he had to say about suicide and clerical abuse.
He said he was ‘grinding his teeth in anger’ – but not at the person who had asked the question but at those who had abused children.
“I was angry at how the abuse had been pathetically handled in the Church and in the State.
“Is it not too late to say something now?” he asked.
“In a sense it is because the damage has been done. Innocent defenceless lives have been forever marked by the evil actions of perpetrators.
“Any trust that may have been there is long shattered.
“We cannot sweep abuse under the carpet; lives are at stake and we must learn from the past and move forward.
“As a memorial exists in Germany today as a reminder of the Shoa (holocaust) so too we as a church and a nation should have a memorial to our children and youth who were abused in our country so that we never forget such atrocities and more importantly never ever repeat them again.”
Families bereaved through suicide were among those attending the Mass.
“The Church has had to face up to its horrific past and it was shamefully and unfortunately made to do so, all the while kicking and screaming until it got its act together and came up to the standards that it has today.
“While the Church today is a safe place for children we must always be very vigilant. It can always be safer; society has to do the same,” he said.
Fr McLaughlin said he was dealing with people who had threatened suicide “on almost a daily basis.”
He called on people not to take their own lives and said the HSE and society “could do a great deal more” to help people.