Christianity

Pastoral care

Pastoral care has always been of special importance in the Christian community. The biographies of the great charismatic ministers, beginning with the Fathers of the Eastern Church and the Western Church, testify to surprising variations of this pastoral care. The principal interest of pastoral care—whether exercised by clergy or laity—is the personal welfare of persons who are hurt, troubled, alienated, or confused within. The historical expressions of pastoral care have focused on the predominant—but not exclusive—expressions of ultimate concern characteristic of the period in question. Ignatius, for example, addressed the terror of death when he termed the sacrament “the medicine of immortality”; Luther responded to the conscience tortured by guilt and uncertainty by proclaiming the free forgiveness of sin by grace alone, apart from human accomplishment; and the modern Christian community has utilized the insights of psychology and psychiatry in developing pastoral counseling and therapy responsive to modern anxieties. Fundamentally, however, pastoral care has always attempted to respond to the totality of human needs in every age in consonance with the words of Jesus Christ: “I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you clothed me, I was sick and you visited me, I was in prison and you came to me” (Matthew 25:35–36).

One of the most important contributions to pastoral care after the New Testament was by Pope Gregory I the Great. His Pastoral Care, written after he became bishop of Rome in 590, was so influential that it became customary to present it to new bishops upon their ordination. This textbook of the medieval episcopate emphasized the role of the pastor as shepherd of souls.

The medieval institutionalization of pastoral care in the sacrament of penance led to certain deficits in practice: the exclusion of the laity by emphasis upon the central role of the priest and the distortion of its original spiritual purposes of prayer, repentance, and forgiveness of sins by the introduction of paid indulgences. The indulgence abuse sparked the Reformation critique of the sacrament of penance. This in turn led to the Reformers’ emphasis upon lay as well as clerical responsibility for pastoral care as expressed in their teaching of “the priesthood of all believers.” The Reformation insistence upon justification by grace alone shifted the burden of proof for salvation from human accomplishment to divine promise. By “letting God be God,” the Reformers claimed that persons were free to be human. This shift of theological focus, from an otherworldly achievement to a this-worldly trust in God, facilitated a renewed holistic awareness of human needs.