“In talking to my pastors, it became crystal clear that there really is a crisis right now regarding mental health and emotional well-being, and in a special way for young people,” Bishop Michael Burbidge of the Diocese of Arlington, Virginia, told EWTN News in an interview discussing a pastoral letter he issued recently.
“The scale and scope of this crisis are staggering,” he said in the letter titled “The Divine Physician and a Christian Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing.” Burbidge explained that he hopes “to offer encouragement and guidance, in light of the teachings of Christ and the Gospel, to all who wish to confront and overcome the modern world’s challenges to mental health and well-being.”
With depression now the leading cause of disability worldwide, and 1 in 5 American adults experiencing mental health challenges each year, according to the National Alliance on Mental Illness, which the bishop cites in his letter, Burbidge told EWTN News that “there’s a real pastoral need for mental health counseling, and my pastors told me they don’t have the expertise” that many families need.
The importance of counselors with a Christian perspective
Many Catholic parents and couples seek out counseling, he said, but often the counseling “isn’t coming from a Christian or Catholic understanding of the world, where persons are oriented to God and to authentic human relationships and the development of virtue.”
Understanding the world through the lens of faith is “the crucial factor — even in circumstances where such faithfulness seems in the eyes of the wider world to be desperate, foolish, or even absurd. Faith and trust in God are shown to be the keys to everlasting health and well-being for humanity,” Burbidge wrote in his letter.
Faith, he told EWTN News, “helps us to get a glimpse of heaven even now … If that’s not a part of the counseling being provided, it won’t bring about the healing we’re seeking.”
Regarding efforts in his diocese, the bishop told EWTN News he formed a mental health commission about a year ago, on which sit experts in psychology, theology, and mental health counseling.
He said with the commission’s help, he hopes to soon issue an extensive list of counselors who have been vetted and recommended for the Catholic faithful in his diocese.
Father Charles Sikorsky, LC, the president of Divine Mercy University, a Catholic school that offers graduate degrees in psychology and clinical mental health and whose graduates work in various capacities in the Diocese of Arlington, told EWTN News that psychology cannot be addressed properly without a “a Christian view, a Catholic view of the person.”
“We’re incarnational beings,” Sikorsky said, “so we need to address the human but also the spiritual dimension of the person, who needs to be treated in a holistic way.”
“The word psyche comes from Greek and means soul,” he continued,” so psychology is the science of the soul, and Christ is the divine physician. Any way of looking at or treating people that doesn’t include the entirety of the interior, spiritual life is not going to work. If you reduce a human person to just biology or experiences, it’s not going to work.”
Lack of community the ‘culprit’ in the crisis
In his letter, Burbidge named a lack of community as a culprit in the mental health crisis.
“We must be willing to connect with others. We are made for community and find purpose when given the chance to cultivate authentic relationships with others and practice virtues like compassion,” he wrote.
“As people of faith, Christians have a particular responsibility to address the stigmas that prevent people from seeking help and to remove barriers that keep so many stuck in patterns of isolation and misery,” he wrote.
Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, recently issued the pastor letter “The Divine Physician and a Christian Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing.” | Credit: Courtesy of the Diocese of Arlington
Burbidge told EWTN News about community-building initiatives that leaders in his diocese have begun, especially since the isolation of the COVID-19 pandemic.
“People learned quickly from COVID that being isolated, not being part of a caring fellowship, was a detriment to their growth and affected mental health,” he said.
He described an increase in new programs throughout the Diocese of Arlington such as Bible studies, lectures, and programs such as That Man is You, a Catholic men’s leadership program.
Sikorsky also cited a lack of connection and loneliness that are particularly prevalent in a society rife with “marriage and family breakdown” and in which technology separates people.
“So many people are afraid to say they need help,” he said. “If the Church is what it needs to be and should be, it will be a place to experience a sense of belonging to something higher, where people can come to be loved and to be understood.”
‘Suffering can be the cross’ that leads us to holiness
The bishop said that in addition to being in communion with others, those suffering from mental health problems must also realize they are beloved children of God, and their “severe distress, depression, or whatever it is, does not define who you are.”
“You’re a child of God — that never changes,” Burbidge said. “Don’t identify yourself with that suffering.”
“You don’t necessarily need to run away from the suffering, however,” he continued. “That could be the cross that can lead you to holiness. It doesn’t have to completely disappear for you to be well. Maybe you can get help, and still live a healthy, balanced life living with the anxiety or whatever it is you’re struggling with. If it causes a little suffering, it can be united to the Lord’s, and you can see it as a path to holiness.”
Sikorsky echoed the bishop, telling EWTN News: “Our dignity is rooted in being children of God. Your dignity is much more than your struggle or the difficulties that you’ve had.”
Burbidge is the latest American Catholic bishop to draw attention to the widening mental health crisis in the United States. In 2025, ahead of World Mental Health Day in October, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB) announced an addition to its ongoing National Catholic Mental Health Campaign.
“As pastors, we want to emphasize this point to anyone who is suffering from mental illness or facing mental health challenges: Nobody and nothing can alter or diminish your God-given dignity. You are a beloved child of God, a God of healing and hope,” the U.S. bishops said at the time.
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