In a recent pastoral letter, Bishop Michael Burbidge of Arlington, Virginia, sought 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 wellbeing.”
“As a priest and bishop, I have observed with increasing pastoral concern the emergence of a broad crisis concerning mental health that is negatively impacting Americans, and especially young people, in terms of their spiritual, mental, emotional, and physical wellbeing,” Bishop Burbidge wrote in “The Divine Physician and a Christian Approach to Mental Health and Wellbeing.”
The prelate also offered his reflections on the “proper place of counseling in the Catholic life—when and in what manner we should make use of it in our pursuit of that authentic happiness that is holiness.”