REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SILVER JUBILEE CONFERENCE OF THE NAHC
REMARKS BY PRESIDENT McALEESE AT THE SILVER JUBILEE CONFERENCE OF THE NATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF HOSPITAL CHAPLAINS
Dia dhíbh a chairde. Tá an-áthas orm bheith anseo libh inniu ar an ócáid speisialta, ócáid stairiúil, seo.
My thanks to all of you and especially to Fr. Brian Gough, your Chairperson, for inviting me to Athlone today to address your Silver Jubilee Conference.
It is interesting that Roget’s Thesaurus does not have an entry for the word chaplain as if to emphasise the uniqueness of what you do and the Oxford Dictionary’s definition of the word misses your work by a mile or possibly by a quarter of a century …..a member of the clergy officiating in the private chapel of a household or institution……… This audience is evidence of how in need of updating that definition is. And this gathering is an apt place to express gratitude for these past 25 years during which the National Association of Hospital Chaplains has put what was an ad hoc and limited service onto a professional and broad based basis.
Here we are in the company of hospital chaplains, some members of the clergy, some not, men and women of faith, whose daily work brings them deep into the lives of strangers under stress. Around you teams of health professionals bring care for the body while you bring care for the soul. Statistics can tell of lives saved, of operations carried out, of treatments successfully administered but your quiet ministry is not so easily quantified yet it has outcomes that are profound and real.
Prior to the founding of the National Association of Hospital Chaplains many chaplains did outstanding work but they did it alone without the support, the focus and the coherence that comes from a team working together, pooling its wisdom and experience and growing in that shared wisdom and experience. So this Association’s foundation marked a watershed in the history of pastoral care in hospitals throughout Ireland, North and South and now twenty-five years later we can see the visible rewards that have resulted from its work; the professionalisation of chaplains as evidenced by the establishing of standards for certification of hospital chaplains; the recognition by the Department of Health and Children of programmes in Clinical Pastoral Education; the establishment of an MA in Clinical Pastoral Education involving Mater Dei Institute of Education in conjunction with Dublin City University; the creation of a forum for chaplains of all denominations; the welcoming of lay chaplains and in particular women into this ministry; the acceptance of chaplains as part of the everyday professional healthcare team; the widening of services to patients, their families and carers; - all these changes for the good and many more you can take credit for.
It is interesting that it is in and through this work of care with those who are fearful of illness or suffering or death, that a much healthier set of relationships between faiths and genders has evolved allowing the charisms, gifts and talents of all to flow much more spontaneously and organically than ever before. There is a respectful mainstreamed collegiality here that the rest of the world has some way to go to catch up with.
Within our Health Care system there is a growing sensitivity to dealing with the individual patient as a complex of physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological needs. This modern “whole person“ approach brings hospital chaplains more speedily into front line duty and it means your role is evolving and changing at a remarkable pace. There is a world of difference between yesteryear’s elderly retired clergyman in a monocultural environment undertaking voluntary chaplaincy duties, entering and exiting hospitals as a freelance and optional adjunct to the daily life of the hospital and today’s structured chaplaincy which has to function as part of a multi-disciplinary team in a multicultural, multi-faith environment.
Sickness or trauma can pitch any one of us into an ‘aloneness’ that makes us anything from vulnerable to terrified. Previous understandings of identity, faith and life are often challenged and sorely tested in such circumstances. You enter the lives of men, women and children about whom you know relatively little at first and then you accompany them on a delicate and difficult part of their life’s journey. There are days when their eyes light up to see you and others when they smoulder in a resentment which you did not generate but which you get the backlash from.
Fr Frank Monks in his contribution to the 21st Annual Conference Anniversary booklet said that years of experience taught him that the greatest response to unravelling the mystery of suffering was to be found in the mystery of care. He spoke of the nurse putting her own family problems aside temporarily to reach out passionately to those in need and of the high-powered businessman who could drop everything for weeks on end to be with his dying sister. The hospital chaplain is right at the fulcrum of this mystery of care that brings us into a space of heartbreaking new realities more easily faced in loving company.
The intricate and sensitive role of the chaplain demands a sophisticated mix of interpersonal skills as well as the expertise achieved through training and formation. The better the quality the better the level of patient care and the better the hospital experience for patient, family and hospital staff for yours is not just an outreach to the individual but to the hospital community.
Yours is a very old service but a new profession. It is taking shape in an environment of considerable turbulence and rapid change for faith communities. Falling vocations to the clerical life, ambient impatient, cynicism, a world of educated, articulate and confident individualism, a culture of equality between genders, races and religions, these things form a challenging backdrop to your work and while others may be able to defer dealing with these challenges you do not have that luxury and life has placed you in a position of real leadership.
On behalf of the many, many patients, relatives and friends, whose lives you have touched with comfort and calm, and the society at large to whom you have provided service and leadership I thank you for these past twenty-five years and hope that this Conference will help recharge the batteries that will fuel the twenty-five years to come.
Is iontach an obair atá ar súil agaibh. Gurb fada buan sibh. Go raibh maith agaibh.