There may be no Sam Maguire in Kerry this summer but this did not stop the celebrations in the kingdom! On 23 July, seven graduates of the Clinical Pastoral Education Programme at University Hospital Kerry completed an intensive twelve-week unit. Clinical Pastoral Education, or CPE as it is more commonly known, has historically been a preparatory programme for hospital chaplaincy. In more recent years its remit has expanded somewhat to include people in preparation for ministry in many other pastoral contexts and situations.
CPE has a focus on the ‘self’ and on the ‘professional’ – supporting participants to grow and develop personally, pastorally and professionally as well as on the multiplicity of skills that are now needed to minister in healthcare facilities (and other pastoral contexts) within an ever-shifting cultural dynamic.
CPE has a trinitarian approach – it consists of education, supervision and clinical placement. Participants are taught many of the skills of listening, how to be present to another person as well as harnessing the gifts of compassion and empathy that are already within the pastoral practitioner. They are also exposed to didactics and workshops on loss, grief, pastoral theology, theology of suffering, hope and many others – helping them to develop skills in reflective practice and theological reflection – core elements of the CPE modality as well as pastoral ministry itself. Students also have weekly individual supervision (as well as group supervision) – a safe space to reflect on their personal, pastoral and professional issues as they emerge during the CPE formation. This is where the CPE methodology of action-reflection-action comes into its own – taking the learnings and insights and bringing them back out into the field so that they can be put into practice. And finally, there is the clinical component of the CPE programme where students encounter ‘living human documents’ – the people who can and do become our best teachers when we learn from the experience of human vulnerability (ours and theirs). Student chaplains are presented with the reality of life and death and in confronting such issues they learn how to be accompany another person in their moments of woundedness and vulnerability.
CPE is a challenging but transformative process. It changes the participants in different ways usually for the better. CPE helps us to learn in real time that sometimes there are no answers, no solutions, nothing that can or will make a difference in the face of real human suffering except our compassion, vulnerability and willingness to show up for another person without judgment, without agenda, without hope of reward.
Dr Margaret Naughton is a Clinical Pastoral Educational Supervisor and Healthcare Chaplain at University Hospital Kerry.
CatholicNews.ie would like to thank Dr Margaret Naughton for submiting this article for publication.
Photo left to right: Father Emmanuel Okwudinka, Richard O’Brien, Father Francesco Okonkwo, Stephen Kalman, Daragh McNally, Pauline Maher and Father Michael Edoziuno with CPE Supervisor Dr Margaret Naughton
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