(The Catholic Thing. Bishop James Conley).
In December 2019, Bishop Conley writes, “I was granted permission by the Holy Father to take a leave of absence to attend to my mental health. It was humbling to admit that I didn’t know how long my healing would take – or if I would even return – but I wanted to combat the cultural stigma around mental health issues (and my shame) by sharing my suffering openly. The outpouring of support and prayer I received from the good people of the Diocese of Lincoln was beyond what I could’ve imagined. I would need all that grace since the hardest part of my journey was still ahead.”
My Story of Pursuing Mental Health https://whatweneednow.substack.com/p/pursuing-mental-health-as-a-catholic Since my conversion to the Catholic Church in college, I have always known my total dependence on God, recognizing this as a defining feature of the human condition. I believed Jesus’ words, “Apart from me, you can do nothing” (John 15:5), but this truth became twisted with a lie. I had been raised according to the common American stereotype of the self-made man who solves every problem himself. When things aren’t going well, he doesn’t show weakness, he just works harder. As a Christian, I adapted this to: he prays and works harder. God offers grace but, with that aid, I mistakenly thought I had to do the rest. Such ungodly self-reliance inevitably led to my unraveling.
Continue reading… Pursuing Mental Health as a Catholic.
Continue reading… My Story of Pursuing Mental Health