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Borderline life situations in seriously ill and dying patients. A space for established religions, or for alternative spirituality?
MARYŠKOVÁ, Jana
The dissertation deals with one of the spheres of the Church?s action in society, specifically the function of caring for the ill in the form of clinical pastoral care in the context of the borderline life situations of patients suffering of a serious illness, in confrontation with so-called alternative spirituality. It asks whether a serious illness is a space for Christianity in the form of clinical pastoral work, or for alternative spirituality, especially with respect to the secular Czech context. To this purpose the theoretical part of the work first stipulates basic and partial criteria for the Church?s practice and then analyses the contemporary social context in which this practice is realised. As the analyses show, the Czech context is characterised by the extremely low interest of Czech people in Christianity on the one hand, but a high interest in magical phenomena on the other hand. This context is then also examined in the empirical part of the dissertation, whose results correspond to the theoretical points of departure and show that the borderline life situations of seriously ill patients open in many of them a space for alternative spirituality as a support system in a difficult life situation. A further part of the work then compares the current practice of the Church with the stipulated criteria and reflects on it theologically. This reflection leads to the stipulation of two criteria ? diakonia and martyria, which enable clinical pastoral care to be a partner in dialogue not only with Christians, but also with patients of alternative faiths, and to react to their spiritual, existential, and possibly even religious needs. The concluding part of the dissertation is devoted to the self-conception of clinical pastoral work in a secular institution. The points of departure here are, among other things, the conception of the chaplaincy service in the Czech Armed Forces and the character of categorial pastoral care, leading to the conclusion that although clinical pastoral care meets the helping professions in many aspects and on the other hand differs from traditional pastoral care in parishes, it can ? similarly to the army situation ? be conceived as a form of pre-evangelism.
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