Suicide

[Thumpalumpacus]

Invalid premise leading your answer. The belief is clearly not solely a Catholic tenet, rendering your answer murky.

I don't think so.  She's speaking as a Catholic, and doesn't have in that context to address other ways at arriving at moral ideas.  Her reason for being against suicide is the religious idea that life is sacred, which implies a question: IS the idea of sacred life only a religious idea?

I'd argue (no longer against your brief comment, obviously) that perhaps it is our residual Christian heritage which makes some Western atheists see life as intrinsically valuable.  Certainly, some past cultures didn't see it that way; my understanding is that suicide drugs like hemlock extracts were carried in vials by many in Roman times, and available to all in the form of willing apothecaries in Shakespeare's time, for example.

It's not so much the value of life that must be preserved,as that the pain of one's death to others that must be avoided.  Suicide is selfish, because it relieves one's own pain at the cost of multiplying it in the ongoing suffering of perhaps many others.  In fact, I think some of those committing suicide probably know and hope for this-- they say, "They never listened to me.  Now let them feel the consequence of their neglect."

Whether this is moral depends on the circumstances, but I think in almost all cases, a suicide leaves behind more victim suffering than righteous retribution, and that the sum balance of this suffering will be greater than that that was experienced by the self-killer, and that the self-killer is therefore acting immorally-- based on the moral principle of the greater good/lesser evil, at least.

I get what you're saying. The point of my reply is that while her faith may have been how she arrived at her opinion, that mountain has several different roads leading up it. Indeed, she could well come to her belief based on more than just her faith. I don't think it's necessarily a binary matter.