[Peterli]

It is very sad. When you consider that in the Middle Ages (and later) hospitals were largely run by the religious orders, and there was then a real sense of looking after the whole person, it is a sad comment on the priorities of the modern world that hospital managers think that chaplains are superfluous to requirements.

I just ran into the head chaplain at one of our local hospitals yesterday He is a trainer certified by ACPE (chaplain training and certification) and I took a course from him long ago and we have kept in touch since then. He told me he is taking anew position at a hospital in another town which was Roman Catholic but which is now a "public" hosptial. He is going there because they know that spiritual care is important but don't know how to do it in this new context. He ran the program here for many years and so now he is going there to help set it up.

Now "spiritual care" in hospitals is pretty "ecumenical" and not even necessarily Christian - but at least there is a recognition of the need to care for the whole person still evident in most institutions in the US.

Fr David Moser