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Hospital chaplains strive to heal spirits

They come ready to listen, serve people of all faiths

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) – Family and friends surrounded the bedside of Sylvia Boldwyn, who was near death after cancer remission.

They all held hands as Pamela Grant, a eucharistic minister with St. Vincent’s Parish, offered a spiritual Holy Communion prayer.

“Lord, I am not worthy that thou should enter under my roof, but only say the word,” she said during Communion before others in the circle joined in. “And my soul shall be healed.”

Boldwyn nodded – an oxygen mask covering her face – as Grant told her she had “received the Lord.” She reached for and held Grant’s hand in what seemed to be an act of gratitude after Grant finished her prayer.

Grant is a volunteer minister at Intermountain Medical Center, one of the area hospitals that prioritizes spiritual care in addition to physical healing.

Upon check-in at hospitals, patients indicate their religious or spiritual preference. Hospital chaplains and volunteers will connect patients with their local congregation, religious group or family members; provide for their spiritual needs; and give them a safe space to heal.

“I believe that they are thirsting for the spiritual, and our world doesn’t ever say people are thirsting for the spiritual because we’re in a whole different mode,” said Rosemary Baron, palliative care chaplain at Intermountain Medical Center.

Latter-day Saint and Catholic congregations and parishes often send missionaries, ministers or volunteers like Grant to help take care of their congregants. Palliative care or hospital chaplains provide spiritual care for these patients as well as those of other faiths or no religion.

“I think that we have all these physicians and caretakers that are taking care of us, and yet, we are a whole body and we’re not just a physical body,” said Susan Roberts, University Hospital chaplain. “We are emotional, and we are spiritual. And even if you are an atheist, that is a belief system and often times atheists are humanists, so they feel connected to something beyond themselves.”

At St. Mark’s Hospital, those who are spiritual but not religious, known as “nones,” make up the majority of the two full-time and one part-time chaplains’ visits.

“Most of them pray or often want to be prayed for,” said chaplain Saundra Shanti.

Chaplains at St. Mark’s approach everyone who enters their doors with an attitude of “cultural religious humility,” engaging patients with an attitude of “‘I don’t know,’ rather than, ‘Oh, yeah. I know about your religion,’” said Lincoln Ure, St. Mark’s director of pastoral care.

He scrambled on his knees around the chapel inside St. Mark’s, gathering religious books from underneath seats to try to show the diversity of religions they serve. He produced a Bible and Bhagavad Gita among other texts found in the chapel, with symbols from various religions seen throughout the room.

Similarly, other area hospitals have chapels or meditation centers where they try to represent all faiths, or be faith-ambiguous, to meet the needs of each patient.

The chaplains have different approaches of how they approach the patient. But one common thread seems to be that they come ready to listen.

“I’ll ask them, ‘What is healing for you?’” said Jeff Price, chaplain at Lakeview Hospital.

One woman said she would like a loom to help her heal. So, Price went to a craft store and bought her a loom, so she could make hats and gloves.

“That was healing for her,” he said. “That was the emotional connection for her.”

Price, a Latter-day Saint, said he encounters many chaplains in training who are worried they will have a difficult time ministering to those of other faiths because they will not be able to be authentic.

“I have my faith tradition, and that’s what’s healing for me. And I identify that every day, that that’s what’s healing for me. But it doesn’t influence negatively my availability for a patient that expresses (another) faith or expresses no faith,” he will tell them. “I find that their source of healing is enough. I don’t have to find a place where it settles OK with me. Because I’m OK with me and my faith tradition.”



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