Missionary Ministry in Hospitals

Abstract

At first glance, the role of the hospital priest is to provide spiritual support and guidance to both people with physical or mental suffering and their families in a time of crisis. The priest of charity, being ordained at the altar, is indebted first to God, then to his own expression of faith and sense of vocation, to the patient, but also to the hospital as an institution. All these obligations usually generate a tension between the spiritual process of pastoral practice and the institutional demands of the hospital. Finally, we ask ourselves, “To whom is the priest of charity indebted?”