Greg Daly
Scott Evans, Rev. Steve Brunn and Sr Bernadette Purcell 
College chaplaincy is changing to meet a changing world, writes Greg Daly
Trinity College this month hosted a remarkable gathering of third-level chaplains from across Europe and further afield, and in between tours to see the Book of Kells, two Irish chaplains took time to explain what was going on.
“It’s the Conference of European University Chaplains, but we actually have people representing New Zealand, Australia and America as well,” says Sr Bernadette Purcell, a Presentation Sister who serves as chaplain at Institute of Technology Tallaght.
Scott Evans, Church of Ireland chaplain to University College Dublin, continues: “It’s an annual event that moves across locations throughout Europe, and is hosted by local chaplains.”
Scott and Sr Bernadette are, with Trinity College’s Rev. Steve Brunn and Dublin Institute of Technology’s Fionnuala Walsh, part of the local planning team for the event. This year’s conference is themed around the notion of ‘Our Ancient Future’, recognising how going forward there is much chaplains can learn from those who have gone before them, with ancient wisdom, traditions and practices being a treasure trove from which today’s and tomorrow’s chaplains can draw.
Sr Bernadette explains that this is the first time the conference has ever been hosted in Ireland – “so that makes it a little bit special”. Fifteen countries are represented at the conference, with 85 delegates being present. An ongoing event in the international chaplaincy world for over a decade, the event serves to help chaplains help students in a range of ways.
“I suppose it’s really to inform and support chaplains in their ministry in universities about current issues,” says Sr Bernadette. “It’s both informative and supportive, it’s networking, and it’s best practice.”
Special
This kind of professional development, for want of a better phrase, is key to chaplaincy in an ever-changing world, Scott says.
“Like any vocation you’re constantly learning and growing to serve the needs of those that you’re called to, and with the way in which the cultural landscape is changing across Europe, being part of a conversation about that,” he says.
“Even yesterday, we had somebody interpreting Brexit through the Book of Ruth, with that idea of a woman who is a migrant, who goes to a new country and has to find her way within that social welfare system and the question of whether or not she’s welcomed and what the People of God do to include the outsider, who comes as victim towards them,” he adds. “That was such a moving part of it, and it brought a richness to the text and an applicability to where we are today. It was really really profound.”
Even aside from the broader European landscape, religious practice is itself changing across Europe, with scholars such as Prof. Stephen Bullivant from St Mary’s University in London mapping out just how small a part religion seems to play in the lives of the young people of today. Given this, an obvious question is whether the role of chaplain is changing to address this.
“Absolutely,” says Sr Bernadette. “The first speaker here was talking about the remove of most people from organised religion and denominational religions into a ‘seeking after’, a spirituality that’s very worldwide.”
As an example of what she terms “spiritual tourism”, she points to how the Pilgrims Paths phenomenon is growing in Ireland and how one of the conference organisers is currently walking the Camino Santiago across Spain.
“I think it’s less institutional-type chaplaincy – it’s more about being a kind of supportive presence for students,” she says. “Your denomination isn’t the first kind of question – it’s more to do with ‘how can I accompany this person in their journey right now throughout their time in university or college?’. And obviously spirituality does become important to them when we ask big questions of life, and I think we have to be there for them at that kind of threshold.”
Crucial to understanding how the nature of demand for chaplaincy has changed is recognising the way trust works in modern society, adds Scott.
“I think the demand for chaplaincy is based on a key question that has changed,” he says. “I think that in the past, when chaplains did the bulk of pastoral care, because of the way that Ireland was, people sought them out because ‘this is a person from my religion – this is an arbiter of truth who I can go to’. Whereas now the question is ‘well, why would I trust that person?’”
This is central to modern chaplaincy, he continues.
“Now the chaplains that have the most demand, I think, are the ones who have built the greatest depth of relationship with the student body and the institution itself, so that people feel comfortable saying ‘go seek out this person because they are safe for you to share your story with’,” he says. “And the chaplaincy of the future, and the chaplaincy that’s worth supporting into the future will, I think, have that at its core, that idea of trust.”
Human need
The fact that our human need for ritual never goes away is something chaplains must help serve, adds Sr Bernadette, citing her own experience of helping students in Tallaght in the aftermath of the abduction and murder last month of Jastine Valdez, a 24-year-old Filipino student at the institute.
“Students also need a space to ritualise these traumatic events,” she says, “as well as joyful ones because sometimes we can focus on the traumatic only or the bereavement kind of end of our work, if you want to call it that.”
Even an event like graduation needs some kind of ritual marking, she says, with chaplains having a duty “to be there during those transitional moments or significant moments of their lives and to offer a ritual that is in keeping with their kind of ‘speak’ and that has meaning for them.
“The students are part of that ritual in terms of making it, but I think we create the space where that ritual is done,” she says.
