The Roman Church regarded suicide as a mortal sin.
It therefore made much of this heinous crime.
For Cathars, there was no reason to regard suicide as a
sin. According to their theology, death represented an opportunity
for the soul to escape this early hell
and return to the realm of light. They apparently
did not regard the Commandment "Thou shalt not kill" as
applying to suicide.
Theoretical acceptance does
not imply, as some Catholic authors still suggest, that suicide was common.
We know that ordinary believers led fairly ordinary lives, almost in spite of
their theology - they married, copulated, raised and cared for their families
much like anyone else. The Cathar practice was probably much the same as
the one accepted by educated people in classical times and by the overwhelming
majority of secular thinkers today. Greeks, Romans, Cathars and Humanists
could all condone suicide, finding no moral objection to it, without manifesting
any inclination to practise it themselves.
Some Cathars are known to have undertaken the endura,
a form of voluntary euthenasia, generally in anticipation
of imminent death. Similarly, believers who were
mortally wounded might take the Consolamentum
and then simply refuse to eat or drink. In this they
saved themselves unimaginable suffering and, as they believed,
won their place in heaven.
Oddly,
There is no record (as far as I know) of Cathars captured by the Inquisition choosing
to undertake the endura. Catholic propaganda might have been expected to make
much of such heinous self-murder - it could easily have fabricated suicide stories
(as some modern Catholic writers do) - but it did not. Why not?
Sex
Crimes 
