‘Spiritual support groups’ create space for Catholics with mental illness

“God, by no means, has abandoned people with mental illness”

More than one in five adults in the U.S. lives with a mental illness. One in 25 lives with a serious mental illness, such as schizophrenia or major depression.

For Deacon Ed Shoener, these statistics are more than mere numbers. In 2016, his daughter Katie died by suicide, after a long struggle with bipolar disorder.

Shoener penned an obituary that honored…