The Rev. Dr. Walter
J. Smith, S.J., on identity and ongoing
efforts to trust each other
Developing
Further Professional Friendships
My Jesuit superiors
encouraged me 14 years ago to accept
the invitation of the trustees of
The HealthCare Chaplaincy to lead
this multifaith pastoral care, education,
and research organization across
the threshold of the twenty-first
century. To succeed in fulfilling
The Chaplaincy’s mandate, two
things have been essential. As an
organization we had to turn our attention inward and
strengthen the core programs, build
a faculty to educate a new generation
of leaders and researchers for the
pastoral care movement, secure the
infrastructures and finances, and
plan strategically for the future.
At the same time, we also had to
look outward to build effective
partnerships among constituencies
in the corporate and philanthropic
world, and engage collaboratively
with others in the cognate worlds
of pastoral care, education, and
research, both nationally and internationally.
For the past several years, each
of the pastoral care and counseling
organizations in North America has
consciously or unconsciously turned
its attention to similar inward and
outward struggles. The very future
of the profession of pastoral care
has been on the line.
In these recent years we have accomplished
some rather important objectives,
which naysayers and skeptics might
have predicted could never have been
achieved. Our histories bear eloquent
witness to our preference for “inward-directed”agendas,
our penchant for not becoming mired
in denominationally-centered issues
and our preoccupation with the internal
struggles in efforts to define our
separate missions, visions, and values.
Identity and mission, traditions
and purpose are not issues that lend
facilely to reconciliation.
In our own denominational pastoral
care organizations and in the wider
field of professional pastoral care,
a perceived need is forcing us to
become sojourners. Otherwise, Jews,
Catholics and Protestants, along
with Muslims, Hindus, Buddhists and
other faith traditions might not
have found themselves in places like
Toronto, Ontario, Nashville, Tennessee,
and Portland, Maine trying to find
common meaning and purpose and a
new way to live together.
Last November, the Roman Catholic
Archbishop of Westminster in London,
Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor,
spoke about the topic of ecumenical
and interfaith dialogue during the
past 40 years. [1] His comments could
equally be illuminating to our interreligious
collaboration as professional chaplains.
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor noted
that we are “no longer enemies
or indifferent neighbors …(we)
meet as brothers, sisters, friends.”
The Cardinal continued: “There
is no question that this pilgrimage
is in difficulty. In a certain way
we can speak of a crisis.
I mean ‘crisis’in the
sense of the original Greek—when
things are hanging in the balance,
on a knife-edge. This state can be
either positive or negative; both
are possible. A crisis is a situation
in which old ways come to an end
but there is room for new possibilities.
The crisis presents itself as a challenge
and a time for decision.”
Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor reasons
that the crisis of the ecumenical
movement is paradoxically the result
of its success. The Cardinal noted
that: “The closer we come to
one another the more painful is the
separation. . .we are hurt by what
still separates us and hinders us…and
we are increasingly dissatisfied
with the status quo.”
Especially poignant for me were
his remarks that: “The closer
we come together, the more important questions
of identity become. Every denominational
group wishes to have its own identity
and not be absorbed in a faceless,
bigger whole.”
For me this is the heart of the
matter. The professionalization of
chaplaincy in North America is inextricably
yoked to our ability to sustain and
develop further the friendships we
have made with each other and the
degree to which we shall succeed
in our ongoing efforts of trusting
each other.
We have gotten so much closer in
our debates and discussions, in our
conjoint meetings and assemblies,
in our day-to-day collaboration in
the work of pastoral care, education,
and research. But as Cardinal Murphy-O’Connor
noted, as we get closer, the issues
of our identities become more delineated,
and the fears of assimilation more
pronounced.
The pastoral care movement in North
America is at a moment of choice.
We have embarked together on a journey,
and many of us share anxieties about
where we are going and how it will
end.
Regardless of the choices we shall
make, we all know that this is a
critical time for choosing, and intuitively
we know that the choices we elect
to make will shape the outcome.
[1] Address
given by Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor
to the Churches Together in England forum
on 6 November 2004, reflecting on
40 years of ecumenical growth since
the Vatican Council’s decree
on ecumenism was promulgated.
The Rev. Dr. Walter J. Smith, S.J.,
has served as the president & CEO
of The HealthCare Chaplaincy since
1991. His academic formation includes
earned master’s degrees in philosophy,
theology, French language and literature,
counseling psychology, and a doctorate
in clinical psychology from Boston
University. Father Smith entered the
Society of Jesus (the Jesuits) in 1962,
and was ordained a priest in 1972.
As clinician and researcher, he is
a recognized specialist in clinical
thanatology and has published numerous
scholarly articles and two books in
his field. He has lectured nationally
and internationally and is considered
a leading authority on the psychological
and spiritual care of the dying.
Do you have
thoughts about advocacy you’d like
to share with your colleagues? Send
an e-mail to info@PlainViews.org.
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Education & Research |
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Chaplain Jim Rowland
on a methodology for
assessing ontological
crisis
Recovering
Meaning and Restoring
Hope
Hope is restored through
the recovery of meanings
and/or functional narratives
within the individual
ontology of persons.
In 1954, Paul Tillich
defined what some call
the core beliefs and
others call a world view
of an individual, as
ontology, [1] which is
composed of an individual’s
narratives [2] pertaining
to philosophical, spiritual,
and psycho-sociological
issues within human existence.
These narratives are
a combination of mystical
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4/6/2005
Vol. 2, No. 5
