Work that is less visible nationally but very important locally is happening everywhere.

Foodbanks and soup kitchens are two very busy basic services working hard behind the scenes.

Some extraordinary ingenuity is being used in these extraordinary times when essential Catholic spiritual work such as, attending to the sick and dying, is severely restricted by Level 4 rules.

Dunedin

Two St Vincent de Paul staff have continued to work providing food parcels. Because the usual donations of food at parish Masses has not been available, food has been bought with donated money, including with a grant from the Tindall Foundation.

The Dunedin and Central Otago Catholic Social Services (CSS) counselling and social work teams are keeping in touch with people using Zoom and phone calls, providing support, counselling, information and helping people get food parcels, technology support and financial help when needed.

Mike Tonks, CSS Dunedin Director, says life for some people has been a little easier under lockdown, with some having less anxiety and reporting they are coping better.

Christchurch
Catholic Social Services Manager Jon Brian says team members are working from home to support parishioners via phone and video link. People are pleased to "unload" to a professional counsellor outside their "bubble," he says.

"Almost all the people reached didn't expect to be contacted or to be able to contact counsellors; they were pleasantly surprised and grateful for that," Jon said.

Catholic hospital chaplains are continuing to work from home, connecting with patients and hospital staff by phone and other devices.

Wellington
Hospital chaplain Lizzie Wootton says chaplains are learning to adapt to new rhythms and routines, at a time when face to face contact is not possible.

But she is able to talk to and pray with people in hospital using their own and hospital phones.

"I try to be present to them because human presence in any form helps with mental health and healing," Lizzie said.

The Compassion Soup Kitchen has doubled its meal production to more than 150 a day since the lockdown started.

The kitchen has closed its communal dining area, instead, they are distributing meals at the door.

Auckland
Catholic Social Services, Catholic Caring Foundation and St Vincent de Paul's foodbank in Newton are working together to get food parcels out to the elderly.

Parishes are also responding to the crisis by setting up phone groups to call elderly parishioners to see who needs help.

One parish is forwarding fresh produce to Vinnies, while another is ensuring that protective gear is made available to the volunteers and staff at the foodbank. Another parish programme is being set up to help the elderly receive their flu vaccinations.

Source

Supplied: He Huinga o nga Pihopa Katorika o Aotearoa
New Zealand Catholic Bishops Conference

Two chaplains are taking up part-time, voluntary roles providing pastoral care and spiritual support to Muslim students - retired political lecturer Dr Najib Lafraie, a former Afghanistan foreign minister who fled the Taliban, and Salmah Kassim, a former diplomatic officer at the Malaysian High Commission in Wellington. Continue reading

Nineteenth-century Catholic teachings declared it the Church's duty to support the working poor. And in the Great Depression, industry titans hired chaplains to visit workers on the Hoover Dam.

But in recent years, a number of companies have gone one step further: They've hired spiritual leaders to serve on their staffs. Though slightly less trendy than nap rooms and yoga classes, workplace chaplaincies are another attempt to make workers more productive by catering to their "whole" selves.

Sometimes, these chaplains serve as spiritual social workers, advising staffers about everything from divorce to cancer.

They might conduct weddings or funerals; they'll often refer people to local churches and, at times, professional psychologists.

People find Jesus everywhere, cubicles and factory lines included. But why would a corporation bother providing guidance to workers as they search for him? What's in it for them?

The potential for profit doesn't hurt.

According to David Miller, a Princeton professor who studies faith and work, these chaplaincies add value to companies, potentially helping create lower turnover rates, increased levels of focus, and reduction in stress-related illnesses.

"Human beings still have problems in life—we get cancer, we get divorced, we have workplace accidents," Miller said.

"In different situations we seek and heal through different kinds of help and services. Sometimes it's a medical service, sometimes it's just a friend to cry on their shoulder, and other times there's a spiritual dimension to it."

For many people, particularly in the United States, religious leaders and institutions often offer that support structure. For those who don't have that kind of independent community, work is a logical place to look for help—and some employers seem to be recognizing that.

As Miller put it in a 2013 paper, "Due to people not having sufficient social support networks, whether at church, in the family, or community, it has become necessary for the work organization to become the new community." Continue reading

Sources

• The Atlantic, from an article by Emma Green, the managing editor of TheAtlantic.com, where she also writes about religion and culture.
• Image: The Gospel Herald

The Waikato Healthcare Chaplaincy Committee Charitable Trust will hold a concert "Hear and Care" on August 30.

The current chaplaincy team at Waikato Hospital is made up of three ecumenical chaplains, one Catholic chaplain, one Maori chaplain and 26 volunteer chaplaincy assistants.

The trust aims to raise 50 per cent of the chaplains' stipends each year through charitable grants and donations from fundraising events like this concert.

St Paul's Collegiate School's Chapel of Christ the King in Hamilton will host the "Hear and Care", which will feature more than 100 performers from 10 local acts.

Per Christe Canimus, which is the St John's College and Sacred Heart Girls' College combined choir, with soloist Ben Stucki, is one of the acts.

Continue reading

To address this, the Council has started to provide advice to hospitals on how to contact Buddhist clergy in their area when they have a patient in need.

In the future, the Council hopes that every hospital in New Zealand will have access to a Buddhist chaplain trained to work with the sick and dying. Continue reading

'Mum's dying.'

'Yes.'

We sat in silence for a bit.

'I've lost my faith.'

'Uh huh.'

'When my friend died.'

'Mm.'

We held hands and Mum's too, wondering in our own ways, about God and faith and people dying and what the universe meant, if anything.

As we fell silent I thought about all the people I had sat beside as life ebbed away and heard of faith being lost as though it was something material that could be found, discovered, or held before, judging by the stories I hear, inevitably lost.

Perhaps, I mused, faith is like the keys that I lose about ten times a day. They're always at the bottom of my bag. It's just that they're so much a part of my life that I can never quite recognise them in the jumble of my chaotic world.

'Could you do a prayer?' she asked.

I must have looked a bit quizzical.

She looked a bit coy.

'Mum stayed religious.'

'I'm not all that flash at praying myself.'

She laughed, 'but aren't you meant to be the chaplain?'

'Yeah, well, we could give it a go, you with your lost faith and me with my shortcomings.' She grinned.

We gave thanks for her Mum's life well lived. For the good times and the downright awful bits. For both pain and sorrow. Then we were still. That's all it was. No God involved, no pleas, no bargaining, just gratitude and acknowledgement of what is.

Someone else came into the room and the moment was over. I got up to go but turned back. 'Someone, I forget who, once said that faith is about courage. But the most important bit about that is to say that you've got heaps of it; faith, courage, whatever, to sit here with your mum whilst she dies.'

On the face of it, my offering into this situation was not particularly religious or Christian. It suited the situation of the person involved who would likely fit the None category, (atheists, agnostics, people who believe nothing in particular).

An experienced Humanist chaplain could have done the job as well as me, however in New Zealand, even although only 8-12% of Kiwis go to church, leaving a staggering 88% outside mainstream religion, the government continues to contract with a consortium of Christian churches to provide Christian hospital chaplaincy. A Humanist chaplain would not be employed.

Yet times have already changed and Kiwis have found new ways to express spirituality outside of the mainstream. As Dr Richard Egan from the University of Otago says:

'Spirituality means different things to different people. It may include (a search for) one's ultimate beliefs and values; a sense of meaning and a purpose in life; a sense of connectedness; identity and awareness; and for some people, religion. It may be understood at an individual or population level.'

Christianity has a part to play in that process of shared development, as do all religious, philosophical and wisdom traditions. We can draw from our rich tradition, a history of service and significant financial commitment to work with others to build a creative and compassionate spiritual healthcare service that meets the needs of Kiwis who are spiritually on the move.

Some may find this disturbing. I find it exciting to be part of what will inevitably be an enriching and stimulating challenge, for all of us. What do you think?

• Sande Ramage in Spirited Crone

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger.

One such person is Father Geoff Hilton, a priest from Salford diocese in the north of England, who will be serving as one of the Olympic chaplains to athletes competing in the 2012 Games in London, Catholic News Service reports.

It was because of his sporting prowess that the former police officer from Manchester was hand-picked to become one of 16 official Catholic chaplains appointed by the Olympics organising committee.

Continue reading

"Making meaning is seen as one of the important elements of spirituality," writes Sande Ramage, which is not a problem at all for patients who recover, but finding meaning when there seems to be no cure "can leave patients and healthcare professionals alike feeling helpless".

In order to cope with helplessness it's possible to adopt a solely scientific approach to suffering, an approach that is challenged in a book called Time to Care, by Dr Robin Youngson. He says that beyond what medicine offers, 'the most profound healing comes from a bond of shared humanity.'

• Read Sande Ramage's article
• Image: UAB Pastoral Care

Sande Ramage is an Anglican priest and blogger

School chaplains at 1,000 extra schools will receive A$222 million more. The significant increase in funding comes despite a High Court challenge to the programme on constitutional grounds and speculation prior to the budget that the future of the school chaplaincy programme was in doubt.

The school chaplaincy announcement was one of the Labor Government's major education announcements.

The $222 million increase promised before the election will provide chaplains for up to 3,700 schools until 2014.

Schools will be able to access up to $60,000 over three years to establish or expand chaplaincy services.

While funding is available to all faiths, most school chaplains are Christian.

The extra funding seems to have come at the expense of the "education revolution" of former Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd.

Rudd's trade training centres promised to secondary schools face delays and the $2.4 billion digital education revolution programme has also suffered significant cuts.