Pastoral Theology Research Articles

A Pandemic of Mistreatment: Theories, Practices, and Convergences in Womanist Clinical Pastoral Theology and Black Maternal Healthcare During Covid-19

ABSTRACT African American women are facing a tripartite pandemic. COVID-19 continues to relentlessly sweep through our families and communities. White supremacy infects our justice system as we await – impatiently – for the justice of Breonna Taylor and other women like her. And, there remains an ever-present and expanding pandemic of mistreatment in black maternal healthcare that has impacted the lives of countless women since our arrival to this land. This essay explores the pandemic of mistreatment in black maternal healthcare in light of the pandemic and through a womanist clinical pastoral theology articulates a response to interrupt it. This essay explores the birth story of Opal, who tells her story while living with COVID-19. Psychoanalytic frameworks are interwoven throughout Opal’s living human narrative to birth a womanist clinical pastoral response advocating for black birthwork as spiritual care.

Ministrantura w posoborowej pedagogii Franciszka Blachnickiego (wprowadzenie do problemu)

The aim of the study is to present the formation of altar boys in the post-conciliar pedagogical teaching of priest Franciszek Blachnicki, an outstanding mystagogue of the Second Vatican Council, in the context of Christian education. The post-conciliar documents changed the severity of the Church, pompous and inaccessible to laymen. Concern for the community of the faithful became the dominant idea of the Second Vatican Council. In connection with the changes taking place in the Church and the needs of Catholics in the Polish People’s Republic, Franciszek Blachnicki made an attempt to lay the foundations for pastoral theology. It included the metho-dological assumptions underlying Catholic communities, placed by the priest in the philosophy of the Christocentric tradition, and based on a dialogue derived from “a philosophical meeting”, mutual service and the value of spiritual experience. The work of Franciszek Blachnicki, which remains valid, has made its way to the history of the Polish Catholic Church. While the priest is widely recognized as the founder of the Light – Life movement, he built the foundations for the concept of work for “communion” when altar service was the only communion approved by the Polish Church authorities.

Mentoring fathers who grapple with fatherhood issues in a faith-based context: A pastoral-theological review

Fathers find themselves increasingly in a social crisis, the fatherhood dilemma, and are misrepresented in various studies and theories intended to shed light on the relationship between mothers and children. Fathers were once considered the pillar of the family, but, over time, society has begun to grapple with father absence as a family issue. This issue has caused a decline in the role and status of fathers. The decline in active fatherhood is a major driving force and one of many issues in society alongside social ills such as crime, violence and poverty. Research has showed that absent fathers affect the development of masculinity in boys and femininity in girls. Families and faith-based communities are directly challenged by father absence. The absence of fathers is a destructive phenomenon and tendency that society has to deal with globally. The role of the father has been devalued and degraded because of father absence. The purpose of this article was to minimise the effects of absent fathers through mentoring which can be a valuable platform for fathers, and it has a biblical nature to solve family issues. Furthermore, mentoring results in a relationship of trust and meaningful commitment, and it provides a helpful and supportive approach to helping fathers who grapple with fatherhood issues. The literature review as a methodology in this article, provided significant knowledge and rich insights to help and support fathers who grapple with fatherhood issues. In addition, the mentoring principles discussed in this study are useful and part of the solution for fathers with fatherhood issues. Mentoring and its process in the paradigm of pastoral theology can be a workable and a possible solution in the confines of households to restore relationships within broken families. This conceptualised from a biblical viewpoint as a solution for Christian fathers. In conclusion, mentoring is a decisive necessity for fathers who grapple with family issues. Relationships are an attribute of families, and mentoring is about relationships. Fathers can be mentored to become great assets to family and society.Contribution: The fatherhood issue is a serious problem in the South African context and no fatherly presence is a negative and devastating trend in many South African homes. Consequently, mentoring as an approach can be a significant contribution to fathers who grapple with fatherhood issues.

Fight, flight or faith: A pastoral model for spiritual coping

This article is dedicated to Professor Gert Breed who had an indelible influence in the expansion of Pastoral Theology in South Africa: first as minister, and second as Professor in Practical Theology. In line with Professor Breed’s keen interest in the interdisciplinary approach between Theology and, for instance, Physiology and Psychology, the main aim of this article is to show how utilising spiritual coping strategies could help the Christian to cope with stress from a faith perspective. Spiritual coping was defined as an individual’s ability to utilise faith in God and Judeo-Christian religious beliefs, as well as active practices to appraise, understand and effectively cope with stressful life events. A literature study was conducted on human defence response and spiritual coping to demonstrate the adverse effects of chronic defensiveness and stress. Spiritual coping was assessed from a scriptural approach to determine what biblical perspectives regarding coping, defensiveness and spirituality may be revealed. Effective coping strategies were explored to indicate how positive spiritual coping skills could be utilised as an alternative to chronic defensives. The Believe-Belong-Behave pastoral model was proposed for the utilisation of spiritual coping methods and skills that could improve psychophysiological well-being. The Believe-Belong-Behave model consists of three categories that each highlight different individual skills, corporate practices, and practical action steps, which, when applied consistently, could all function in harmony to promote psychophysiological well-being. The components of the proposed pastoral model could offer a harmonious contribution towards spiritual coping and the Christian’s spiritual formation within the local church.Contribution: This article assessed theological perspectives and biblical practices within the basic tenets of Reformed theology to identify resemblances to stress appraisal and human defensiveness throughout the historical course of Scripture. This study in Practical Theology highlighted the importance of combining a strong scriptural or theological foundation with certain practical skills to respond to stressors from a faith-in-action perspective. The proposed pastoral model showed the modern-day Christian how faith in God could be used to cope with stress more effectively.

Social and Political Freedom: A Pastoral Theological Perspective—Part I

Pastoral theology can contribute to the discourse on social-political freedom. More specifically, the concepts of care and faith—theologically, existentially, and psychologically understood—provide an innovative and illuminating perspective on the notions of social and political freedoms as well as how they are related. A focus on the dynamics of faith and care vis-a-vis freedom, for instance, also renders a diagnosis of the social-political pathologies of neoliberal capitalism with its atomization of human beings, distortion of accountability, and exploitation of human beings and the earth. To move in this direction, part I of this paper offers a brief overview of some of the salient features of discourses on political freedom in the West, namely, justice, equality, rights, reason, and agency. Noticeably absent is any connection between political freedom and civic care and civic faith. This sets the stage, then, for a discussion on care and faith vis-a-vis social and political freedom, which is developed in part II of this paper. Part II, which will appear in the next issue of this journal, develops a view of freedom relying first on the pre-political space of parent–child interactions and how they relate to the child’s emerging experience of and capacity for social freedom. Once this is developed, I shift to differentiating between social and political freedoms, which allows me to reimagine political freedom in terms of the dynamics of care and faith.

Online Live-Stream Broadcasting of the Holy Mass during the COVID-19 Pandemic in Poland as an Example of the Mediatisation of Religion: Empirical Studies in the Field of Mass Media Studies and Pastoral Theology

The main aim of the paper is to discuss the scale and nature of the practice of transmitting Holy Mass by parishes of the Roman Catholic Church in Poland through online live-streaming in spring 2020. The authors analyse these issues in a multifaceted and interdisciplinary way, mainly within the framework of communication and media studies and theology. The methodology of the paper combines practical theology (its four stages: “see-judge-act-review”), scientific methods applicable to social studies (especially social communication and media studies and sociological studies), and the technical aspect of communication activities (in the form of live video streaming) performed by parishes on the Internet. As it turns out, 40.8% of Polish parishes carried out online Mass broadcasts. In most cases, the main sources of broadcast signal were YouTube (18.9%) and Facebook (18.7%), while less than 5% of the parishes conducted technically independent broadcasts. The research showed a statistically significant correlation between online Mass broadcasting and the region of Poland. There was a statistically significant difference between the parish size and Mass broadcasting—the larger the parish, the more often such activities were performed; a similar correlation was observed between urban and rural parishes. Research has shown that in the dioceses where bishops directly encouraged parish priests to broadcast from their parishes, the average percentage of broadcasts was higher (46%) than in those in which there were no such incentives (38%). There was a statistically significant relationship between having a website and conducting online Mass broadcasting. Similarly, there was a statistically significant relationship between the type of parish (conventual–diocesan) and online Mass broadcasting. Conventual parishes did this much more often than diocesan ones (68.6% and 38.9% respectively).

Praktisk och pastoral teologi i Svenska kyrkans prästutbildning

In this article, we discuss practical and pastoral theology in relation to Swedish theological education for future ordained clergy in the Church of Sweden. We look at how pastoral theology is understood in the Church of Sweden today and its relation to Practical Theology as an academic subject. We problematize the split between "academic" and "pastoral" theology and argue that pastoral theology should be understood as a part of the academic discipline Practical Theology. Practical Theology today is heavily theoretical and methodological, not least in the United States, the origin of much literature used in the Swedish context. Interesting as this may be from a research perspective, the discipline runs the risk of losing some of its relevance for undergraduate theological education. Here we discuss different aspects of pastoral and practical theology, and how they may feed into each other. We highlight the potential problems with a practical theology distancing itself from what has been called "the clerical paradigm" (in Sweden: pastoral theology), but also point to the importance of Practical Theology as an academic field in relation to ordination training. In Sweden, academic theology is still understood as supposedly "neutral", which complicates the relationship between "academic" and "pastoral" theology, as this obscures the influences from explicit normative and constructive practical theology on Swedish theological education. Drawing on practical theologians such as Bonnie J. Miller-McLemore and Mary McClintock Fulkerson, we discuss the normative and constructive ambitions in some practical theological schools of thought today. A changing understanding of Practical Theology may contribute to pastoral theology as a part of the ordination training in the Church of Sweden, but the normative assumptions need to be made explicit.

Contextual pastoral counselling: Paradigm shifts in practical theological development since the middle 20th century

There have been many changes in pastoral care and counselling and pastoral theology since the middle 20th century. At first, the changes were viewed as an evolutionary process as the discipline evolved into an authoritative science. Although it seems as if pastoral care and counselling followed the footsteps of psychology, there were important paradigm shifts towards contextual pastoral counselling based on the Word of God. The major question of this article is, what important paradigm shifts in the development of practical theology since the middle 20th century can be distinguished that are in line with the requirements for contextual pastoral counselling? In an attempt to answer this question, a thorough subject-specific literature study was conducted by looking at prominent scholars’ view on the development of pastoral theology. The article is divided into five main parts. The first part focused on the development of practical (and the subdivision, pastoral) theology, with emphases on important paradigm shifts and the work of prominent scholars. The second part focused on the current challenges facing pastoral theology. The third part focused on paradigmatic positions, scientific research markers and approaches, and different layers of meaning unique to pastoral theology. The fourth part focused on diakonia with a religious consciousness of transformative moral or ethical orientation. The article concluded with a reflection on how the paradigm shifts are in line with the requirements of contextual pastoral counselling. The conclusion of the article is that together with the normative deductive aspects of pastoral theology, the inclusion of context-specific empirical experiences is an aspect that must be taken into consideration. Contribution: The primary contribution of this article is that a systematic description of the important paradigm shifts in the development of practical theology since the middle 20th century was given and brought in evaluation against the requirements for contextual pastoral counselling. The objective was to enhance appropriate theory formation with the aim to focus on the distinctive character of pastoral counselling, and its connectedness to the broader field of practical theological science. These insights link to the focus and scope of the journal, because it contributes to the epistemological dialogue of practical theology.

A Pastoral Theology of Dwelling: Political Belonging in the Face of a Pandemic, Racism, and the Anthropocene Age

ABSTRACT The recent pandemic has accompanied a surge of protests against racial injustice in the United States and around the world, which together are occurring during a growing recognition that the world is in the midst of a sixth extinction event. These three events (and others) have in common the question of how we (human and other-than-human beings) shall live or dwell together on this one earth. In this article, I first sketch out the various existential features of dwelling. This sets the foundation for moving to a pastoral theological perspective on dwelling and its relation to the pandemic, racism/classism, and the Anthropocene Age.

Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

<i>Medieval Historical Writing: Britain and Ireland, 500–1500</i>. Edited by Jennifer Jahner, Emily Steiner, and Elizabeth M. Tyler. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2019. Pp. xvi+581.

The African Church’s application of anointing oil: An expression of Christian spirituality or a display of fetish ancestral religion?

The content of Christian spirituality that made waves since the inception of the early church soon took on different contours as the faith got adapted to different gentile contexts. The expression of this faith, along with its liturgical symbolism and sacramental observances, is still gaining momentum in African Christianity. The emerging practice of the use of ‘anointing oil’ in its religious expression is receiving more attention than the Christ of the Gospel. In this article, we argue that against its primitive intent, the use of the ‘anointing oil’ by the African Church is a mere display of fetish ancestral religion that expresses its unique African traditional religious root rather than a true expression of Christian spirituality. Our thesis is framed on the basis that the manner in which some African churches apply the purported ‘anointing oil’ is discriminatory vis-à-vis its ancient understanding and purpose. In our attempt to address this damaging practice to true Christian spirituality, also standing as a huge challenge for pastoral theology, we undertook a careful historical–theological analysis of the extant biblical data and its contextual interpretation vis-à-vis its distortion today. We concluded that what pastoral theologians have to deal with within the Christian community in Africa is offering the right biblical perspective against the distorted mode of the application of the contemporary purported ‘anointing oil’ that is falsely projecting the Christian faith and belief in a bad light. Contribution: The application of the anointing oil in contemporary Christian religion in Africa is, to say the least, not an inherent textually prescribed requisite criterion for Christian spirituality, but merely an outburst of fetish ancestral religious worldview that stands contra the hermeneutics of the biblical text and its ancient tradition. That no Old Testament prophet, not even Jesus nor Paul, mentioned the subject, makes its contemporary application textually and theologically suspect, and therefore, heretically infectious for the spiritual health of the community of faith. These insights sit quite well with the textual hermeneutics within the mainline transdisciplinary religious and multidisplinary theological perspective of this journal.

A Radical Pastoral Theology for the Anthropocene Era: Thinking and Being Otherwise

ABSTRACT The Anthropocene Age will usher in more frequent natural and political disasters. These looming catastrophes invite critically reimaging our theologies. This article sketches out a radical pastoral theology for the Anthropocene Era by first addressing and illustrating the existential dynamics of care. Here it is claimed that care is radical because it founds agency, as well as subjectivity and intersubjectivity. This sets the stage to demonstrate the connection to the political reality of care and its connection to other species and nature. The concluding section builds on the previous sections, while shifting to the theological rendering of radical care as the indeterminate, infinite care of a non-sovereign God revealed in creation and in the ministry of Jesus Christ.

God, the Good Life, and Pastoral Practice

In this study, I emphasize that pastoral practice revitalizes the significance of spiritual life as an alternative way to negotiate the science of well-being. This article is written from the perspective of practical theology, which is framed as a way of “living well” in which it is doubtful for both the individual and community to fulfill the good life without spirituality. Such an approach entails a degree of a transformative and transcendent life created by new senses, attentions, knowledge, ontological understanding, and disciplines out of the experience of the triune God. This study responds to the vocation of practical theology according to Ruard Ganzevoort and Johan Roeland, who assert that, “In its focus on praxis, practical theology has evolved out of three historical different styles of theology with differing concepts of and methodological approaches toward praxis: pastoral theology, empirical theology, and public theology.” They suggest that pastoral practice should be something that contributes to the culture of well-being and that the roles of spiritual life in the formation and reformation of the good life should be clarified.

The “Pastoral Theology” in modern Orthodox theological seminaries: between training and education

The “Pastoral Theology” in modern Orthodox theological seminaries: between training and education

A Christian spirituality of imperfection: Towards a pastoral theology of descent within the praxis of orthopathy

A Christian spirituality of imperfection: Towards a pastoral theology of descent within the praxis of orthopathy

Catechesis with the Domestic Church

Catechesis with the Domestic Church Gregory Sobolewski (bio) The third in a series of catechetical directories from the Holy See appeared in June 2020, issued by the Pontifical Council for Promoting the New Evangelization rather than the Congregation for the Clergy that presented directories in 1971 and 1997. The new iteration continues the typical arrangement: observations on the human condition, essential Catholic doctrines, principles for varied catechetical methods, age-appropriate considerations, and ecclesial assets for forming and assisting catechists. The renamed Directory for Catechesis (abbreviated herein as Directory/2020) defines catechesis as "an ecclesial act, arising from the missionary mandate of the Lord and aimed, as its very name indicates, at making the proclamation of his passion, death, and resurrection continually resound in the heart of every person, so that his life may be transformed."1 Directory/2020 is especially noteworthy for catechists who are interested in understanding the social influences on their hearers, whether they be "their children" or "their students" or "their people." The new directory introduces and considers cultural scenarios that have recently emerged to influence persons worldwide, including urban and rural, ecumenical and pluralistic, digital and socially unequal. While restating its predecessors' twin objectives for catechesis—maturing initial faith and educating the disciple of Christ—Directory/2020 emphasizes the social transformation of Christian believers who are in broad dialogue with their culture as well as their local churches. This article will account for Directory/2020's increased emphasis on social transformation of believers and their Church in two parts: 1) an historical overview of the three directories with attention to their evolving focus on family as domestic church, and 2) a discussion of [End Page 5] domestic church, subsidiarity, and accompaniment as three ambient Catholic principles that can amplify our understanding of the most recent catechetical directory regarding social transformation. I argue that attention by catechists and their formators to the domestic church should prioritize the principle of subsidiarity and the practice of accompaniment in order to promote the social maturation of the Catholic faithful as well as their missionary discipleship. Overview of the General Catechetical Directory (1971), the General Directory for Catechesis (1997), and the Directory for Catechesis (2020) Catechetical directories emerged as a genre of magisterial teaching consequent to the Second Vatican Council's Decree Concerning the Pastoral Office of Bishops in the Church (1965), which stated "this directory will consider the fundamental principles of such [catechetical] instruction, its disposition and the composition of books on the subject. In preparing these directories, special attention should be given to the views which have been expressed both by the commissions and the council Fathers."2 General Catechetical Directory (1971) The Sacred Congregation for the Clergy produced the Directorium Catechisticum Generale in order to provide basic principles of pastoral theology for the ministry of the Word and catechetical maturation of Catholic faithful. While emphasizing doctrinal teaching and including various pastoral methods, this directory taught overall that "catechesis should contribute to the gradual grasping of the whole truth about the divine plan by preparing the faithful for the reading of Sacred Scripture and the learning of tradition."3 Directory/1971 opened with an emphasis that "special pains" had been taken to develop the new integral presentation of Catholic faith [End Page 6] for pastoral action, thereby promoting the council's expectation that local churches would also strive mightily to develop regional catechisms for particular pastoral contexts.4 Berard Marthaler, OFM Conv., observed that a universal catechism, an unfinished project of the First Vatican Council (1869–70), was not endorsed by the Second Vatican Council (1962–65). Instead, the "catechetical directory" emerged as the alternate genre and it evolved through consultations among episcopal conferences worldwide that were conducted by the Sacred Congregation for the Clergy.5 This initial directory specified its proportional concerns, given the traditional twofold definition of "faith which is believed" (fides quae creditur) and "faith by which it is believed" (fides qua creditur): It is clear that not all parts of the "Directory" are of the same importance. Those things which are said about divine revelation, the criteria according to which the Christian message is to be expounded, and the more outstanding elements of that same...

Interdisciplinarity in Pastoral Theology. An Example of Socio-Theological Research

The purpose of the article is to analyze the idea of interdisciplinary research involving pastoral theology and sociology. This is one of the methodological proposals for research projects carried out under pastoral theology. Interdisciplinarity is understood as combining research methods for the cooperation of scientists from both disciplines in the process of planning, implementing and interpreting the results of empirical research. It is inspired by a problem identified in pastoral theology that requires exploration. The presentation consists of three parts. The first is devoted to the location of empirical research within pastoral theology. The second concerns the assumptions and significance of interdisciplinary research involving pastoral theologians and sociologists. In the final part, the areas of interdisciplinary cooperation among the research teams are pointed out. The potential of qualitative research as a space for cooperation among representatives of both sciences and as an important source of knowledge from the viewpoint of pastoral theology is shown. The comparative and synthetic method was used. The analysis shows that interdisciplinary research in the field of pastoral theology has great potential related to the acquisition and interpretation of multi-faceted empirical data and the designation of new research fields, which will significantly enrich the theological analysis process as well as the presentation and application of pastoral models.

Media Education and the New Evangelization. Part Two: Pastoral Postulates and Educational Proposals

This article is a methodological continuation of the content presented in the first part of the author's research (“Media Education and the New Evangelization. Part One: Media Components and Challenges”, Verbum Vitae 37 [2020] 407-425) and represents an implementation of the concepts outlined there. In that previous text, the author demonstrated that pursuing a new evangelization in the Church demands the media education of evangelizers and their cooperation with the leaders of media education. This present article is aimed at formulating pastoral postulates and educational proposals based on the issues and connections that emerged. The first section outlines the postulates and educational proposals relating to those in charge of ongoing formation and who serve in the Church on the basis of the canonical authorization to teach (missio canonica). The second section contains postulates that apply to the formation of lay people and future clergy in preparing for evangelization in the Church. The third section focuses on a group of postulates concerning school religious education in light of the current Core Curriculum of the Catechesis of the Catholic Church in Poland (2018). This paper concludes with four research issues in the area of media education in the Church in the context of the current SARS-CoV-2 pandemic. The methods of the third research stage borrow from the methodological paradigm of pastoral theology, mainly in its methods of analysis and synthesis, and have been applied in the article.

Marital Satisfaction and a Sense of Life’s Meaning Among Couples Struggling with Infertility. A Theological-Pastoral Take

The problem of infertility today constitutes a challenge for pastoral theology and pastoral care of families. This article, of a theological-empirical character, addresses the correlation between marital satisfaction and a sense of life’s meaning among infertile married couples who seek help in Catholic clinics for infertility treatment. It first discusses the theoretical background and selected results of existing scholarship on the influence that infertility has on conjugal relations and a sense of life’s meaning. Then, it outlines the group of infertile married individuals studied and elucidates the research methodology employed. Then, the results of the research into a sense of life’s meaning and marital satisfaction are presented, together with the correlation between the two factors. The final section of the article offers conclusions drawn from the research conducted. The article argues that a sense of life’s meaning is visibly contingent on the respondents’ martial satisfaction, especially on their working together on their problems and leading trustful conversations about them, on their care for strengthening their mutual love, and on showing the spouse that they are loved. On this basis, the article argues that pastoral care offered to infertile couples needs to enhance their faith, which will have a positive impact on their sense of life’s meaning and on their marital satisfaction. Both within regular work at clinics for infertility diagnosis and treatment and within pastoral care, infertile couples should be taught to show care for their mutual bond, especially to have conversations that will enable them to manifest and strengthen their love and solve problems, as this would foster their marital satisfaction and enhance their sense of life’s meaning.

Presentation of the Dossier

The dossier Community and Pastoral Practices: Ancient and Current, opened space for reflection on the role of community and pastoral practices in the realm of religions and, especially, in the realm of Christianity, in certain contexts and historical and current milestones. The result of this proposal presents, in general lines, a diversity of community and pastoral practices that are inspired by the historical journey of caring for people, in the religious field. We receive articles that offer research niches that can be inspirations for new knowledge in the field of Practical Pastoral Theology.