Choices Matter conference discusses mental health issues

“Thank you for your commitment to our faith, to our Church and especially the Eucharist,” said Bishop James F. Checchio to the congregation seated within the chapel of the St. John Neumann Pastoral Center, Piscataway, March 29. “Thanks for your dedication. Let us keep ourselves focused on Jesus, keep us close to his own Sacred Heart.”

The important role of the Catholic Church in offering faith-filled treatment of mental illness was the theme of the annual day-long 2025 Choices Matter - A Critical Life Issues Conference, the 24th such event sponsored by the diocesan Office of Human Life and Dignity. The program of diverse speakers, prayer, book signings, fellowship, pro-life and mental health exhibits, along with the opportunities of Eucharistic Adoration and Confessions, began with Mass celebrated by the Bishop.

A quartet of speakers educated, energized and inspired the attendees in their keynote presentations.

God’s Greatest Creations

In her autobiographical presentation entitled “The Light in Our Darkness,” speaker Lisa Kratz Thomas maintained that the war against Satan is real and insidious.

“We have an enemy who wants nothing more than to kill us,” she told the audience. “He comes to steal, to devour and to destroy; he manipulates our choices and decisions through circumstances, feelings and situations. We are not fighting flesh and blood.”

Thomas described her youth and young adulthood as a self-destructive mix of suicidal tendencies, alcoholism, drug abuse, homelessness, incarceration and prostitution; “I thought God was for holy people, and I didn’t realize I was one of God’s greatest creations,” she admitted. 

Her involvement in a 12-step recovery program led her back to God’s loving protection, Thomas said. “I recommitted my life to Christ and started turning this around. I asked for surrender and forgiveness.” A political advocate helped her secure an appointment to a Senate Sub-Committee that studied prisoner reentry in Virginia, and Thomas has worked with the Virginia Department of Corrections presenting her self-created reentry seminar to multiple facilities.  

The married mother of two, author of three books and former radio talk show host reminded the audience to realize their own worth. “Every person in here has a pulpit. Some decisions we make carry a great weight,” Thomas said. “We are supposed to be fountains that living water can flow through. It’s our job to show Jesus with skin on.”

She concluded, “Despite all my flaws, God has blessed me with fulfillment, purpose and joy. God’s love is unwavering. He cleans us up and uses us in mighty, mighty ways. There is always time for God to change our lives.”

It's All In Your Head

Erin McCole Cupp, a wife, mother, Lay Dominican and certified trauma recovery coach, asserts mental health is THE pro-life issue, for the unique composition and operation of the human brain helps us build the culture of life. 

Through her work with Amabilis Coaching and Consulting, Cupp is herself on a 30-year journey of recovery from mother/daughter sexual abuse, compulsive overeating, binge eating and developmental and betrayal trauma. She coaches, writes and speaks about mental health, family trauma and addiction recovery from a Catholic perspective.

“How we make choices impacts every issue when it comes to advocating for the dignity of human life,” said Cupp. “It may destroy our confidence and the ability to get through discomfort. There are isolated characteristics that destroy our confidence: pride, perfectionism, self-reliance and fear all come from the disruption of the healthy maturation process of the human brain.”

Cupp described the functions of each part of the human brain and told the group, “Without a healthy, mature brain you cannot make healthy choices. Humans were designed to go through stages and encounter developmental tasks as we age.

“Genesis tells us that we are a social species, and it is not good for us to be without each other,” she declared. “If we cannot trust the people around us to image God for us, most of the time we are not secure enough to progress to other stages.

“We were made for paradise… and we live here,” Cupp said wryly. “We can only show God’s love when we act as God would. Humans can’t learn while they are in a threat response. We can only reach people when we are experienced as safe; when we talk about the science, we show our [pro-choice] opponents that we have a lot in common.”

Sobering Statistics

Leave it to a former Las Vegas entertainer to lead an audience from joy to sorrow in just a few minutes.
Keaton Douglas began her presentation, “The Road to Hope: Responding to the Crisis of Addiction,” by inviting the audience to join her with a heartfelt rendition of “Amazing Grace,” then shared facts and figures on the heartache of mental illness which affects this country today.

Douglas studied for her master’s degree in theology at the Immaculate Conception Seminary School of Theology, Seton Hall. She began a retreat for women in recovery at the Shrine of St. Joseph in Stirling, and recalled, “I received compassion and love from them. What we have in common as wounded children of God: I saw Christ in them.”

What does the Church know about addiction and recovery, she wondered. “The answer is in a number: 205,000; 95,000 was the number of deaths from alcohol abuse in 2023, the remaining 110,000 were deaths from overdose that year,” she cited. “That’s 2-1/2 times the people that can fit into MetLife Stadium. And on a daily basis, this country loses 301 to overdoses.”

Douglas continued, “That 205,000 is an important number for politicians, for clinicians, for statisticians; for people of faith, it is not enough. We must see past the number to look at the unique human dignity of each of those persons, to recognize the struggle of each, recognize our own brokenness in them, to provide hope, healing and spiritual consolation to the families of those lost and to the families of those still suffering.”

To those that question the Church’s role in this crisis, she maintained, the negative emotions require a spiritual remedy, and all addictions require spiritual healing. Scripture and the commandments to love our God and love each other demand it. They are the very Cross itself, Douglas added. 

In response, Douglas created the iTHIRST Initiative, a comprehensive program which focuses on spirituality in the prevention, treatment, and aftercare of those suffering from substance use disorders and their families. The iTHIRST Spiritual Companionship Training instructs lay leaders and clergy on the spiritual dimension of addiction and recovery, certified through Seton Hall University.

“If you call it a moral failing, if you call it a spiritual disease, if you call it a bad choice… Has anyone here ever made a bad choice?” Douglas asked the audience. “I think the most important thing as Catholics is to see the pain at the root of this choice. How can I offer you love, how can I offer you His mercy, how can I help you in His name?

“An empowered Church must have boots on the ground,” she concluded. “It must be able to say, ‘Come home. You are welcome here.’”

Hope in The Time of Sorrow

“If you don’t have mental illness, you know and love someone who does,” stated Deacon Edward Shoener of St. Peter’s Cathedral in the Diocese of Scranton.

He should know; in August, 2016, his daughter, Katie, committed suicide. Eager to put to rest the common misconceptions about suicide, including the stance of the Catholic Church, the grieving father penned her obituary which went viral.

Deacon Shoener showed the audience pictures and films of his beloved daughter who had long struggled with bipolar disorder. “We had no experience, and it took us a long time to understand,” he recalled. “It doesn’t respect class, it doesn’t respect culture or race. It doesn’t mean you are a bad Catholic.”

In response to his grief and the lack of faith-based information, the deacon teamed up with Bishop John Dolan of Phoenix to write two books: “Responding to Suicide: A Pastoral Handbook for Catholic Leaders,” and “When a Loved One Dies by Suicide.”  Deacon Shoener is a founding member of the Association of Catholic Mental Health Ministers (catholicmhm.org) and the Catholic Institute of Mental Health Ministry at the University of San Diego. He serves on the Council on Mental Illness of the National Catholic Partnership on Disability and on the Board of Pathways to Promise, an interfaith cooperative that facilitates the faith community’s work in reaching out to those with mental illnesses and their families.

“One of the ways I coped with my grief is to read as much as I could about suicide, but there were no authoritative books from the Catholic Church.” he said. “We need to integrate mental health care into the Church, for them to open its doors and say, ‘we get it.’ Some day, when a person has a mental health problem, the first thing they need to think of is going to the Church.”

Deacon Shoener continued, “We believe this is a prolife issue, and, all too often, people were not supported.” Advocating parishes create such a ministry for their members, he said, “We can offer spiritual and social support. It can be a simple ministry and you do not need to turn ministers into therapists or counsellors.”