THDM700 - Pastoral Ministry and Care of the Person

Year

Credit points

Campus offering

Prerequisites

Nil

Teaching organisation

The approximate total amount of time you will spend on this unit is 300 hours. This total includes intensive, retreat-like experiences in which participants are invited to examine and re-examine their relevant professional and personal experience in the context of unit content as presented in lectures, group conversations, workshop activities, guest presentations, and videos. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of tasks for assessment.

Unit rationale, description and aim

Those who lead in the area of pastoral ministry require knowledge of the theological foundations of their role. They need the capacity to think theologically about the specific personal and cultural dynamics of their ministry.

In this unit, students examine the role of Catholic understandings of the human person in pastoral ministry. They pay special attention to the existential and spiritual aspects of caring for persons and providing for their flourishing in society, especially for those who experience multiple and complex forms of vulnerability. Students explore the nature and distinctive features of Catholic Christianity, including the Christological content of its sacramental, ecclesial, and spiritual mission-dimensions. With reference to specific pastoral ministries, students analyse how Catholicity informs and interacts with culture.

As the introductory unit in the Doctor of Ministry, this unit orients students to the theological foundations of pastoral ministry and its overarching concern to provide authentic care for persons in the fullness of their humanity.  

Learning outcomes

To successfully complete this unit you will be able to demonstrate you have achieved the learning outcomes (LO) detailed in the below table.

Each outcome is informed by a number of graduate capabilities (GC) to ensure your work in this, and every unit, is part of a larger goal of graduating from ACU with the attributes of insight, empathy, imagination and impact.

Explore the graduate capabilities.

On successful completion of this unit, students should be able to:

LO1 - Describe how theological anthropology informs the foundations of pastoral ministry in relation to the mission of Jesus and the church (GA4, GA5);

LO2 - Critically analyze how pastoral ministry draws creatively on distinctive elements of Catholicity (e.g., habits of mind, ritual and communal action, spirituality and prayer) in providing authentic, holistic care for persons with specific needs (GA1, GA2, GA3);

LO3 - Develop a process of theological reflection for the exploration of personal identity and growth in the context of pastoral practice (GA5, GA7). 

Graduate attributes

GA1 - demonstrate respect for the dignity of each individual and for human diversity

GA2 - recognise their responsibility to the common good, the environment and society 

GA3 - apply ethical perspectives in informed decision making

GA4 - think critically and reflectively 

GA5 - demonstrate values, knowledge, skills and attitudes appropriate to the discipline and/or profession 

GA7 - work both autonomously and collaboratively 

Content

Topics will include:

• The mission of Jesus and the church
• Theological anthropology
• Self-awareness and self-transcendence
• Freedom, conscience, authenticity
• Pastoral care
• Theological reflection skills
• Listening skills
• Grief and loss
• Suffering and compassion
• Discernment and election
• Hope and last things

Learning and teaching strategy and rationale

The learning and teaching strategy utilized in this unit draws extensively upon nearly 500 years of Jesuit educational philosophy and practice found in the Ignatian Pedagogical Paradigm (IPP). The IPP understands learning and teaching as sequenced in exploration of context, experience, reflection, action, and evaluation. This process enables participants’ readiness to engage in a learning process that is transformative of the whole person, mind and heart. The learning process that it facilitates draws on the Christian view of the human person in its structure and content, for example, by emphasising the participants’ dignity and creative contribution to the experience of learning. The vision of the IPP presupposes that learner and teacher enter into a mutual and reciprocal relationship whereby each searches for the insight of the other and in the service of shared learning.

The unit utilizes this strategy because it specifically offers a model of adult-learning that recognizes, supports, respects, and develops the wealth of experience and knowledge that participants bring to this unit. This strategy aims at facilitating participants’ appropriation of unit content in relation to their own learning needs and personal growth. As a result, this strategy generates readiness for personal transformation and meaningful professional impact.

The approximate total amount of time you will spend on this unit is 300 hours. This total includes intensive, retreat-like experiences in which participants are invited to examine and re-examine their relevant professional and personal experience in the context of unit content as presented in lectures, group conversations, workshop activities, guest presentations, and videos. The remaining hours typically involve reading, research, and the preparation of tasks for assessment.

Assessment strategy and rationale

The assessment strategy of this unit aims to facilitate participants’ incremental and scaffolded appropriation of unit content in relation to their personal and professional commitments to pastoral ministry and their learning needs. The assessment tasks enable participants to synthesize and deepen their learning in the unit in view of the unit’s transformative educational philosophy in the Ignatian tradition. The unit utilizes three assessments, each of which scaffolds unit content with respect to the participants’ learning needs.

The first assessment asks participants to revisit a broad range of unit content (e.g., readings, lecture notes, workshop conversations) and select the aspects for their learning most significant for their personal and professional growth and in relation to the unit’s learning outcomes (LO2).

The second assessment task asks participants to analyse contextual challenges in pastoral ministry using a broad range of theological resources and drawing on recent developments in theology. 

The third assessment both builds on participants’ appropriation of learning in the first and second tasks and facilitates the participants’ focused application of learning to a specific dimension of pastoral ministry (LO1, LO2, LO3). Both assessments provide a strong, practical connection between unit learning outcomes and participants’ personal and professional commitments to pastoral ministry.

Overview of assessments

Representative texts and references

Arbuckle SM, G. Crafting Catholic Identity in Postmodern Australia. Canberra: Catholic Health Australia, 2007.

Crumpton, Stephanie M. A Womanist Pastoral Theology Against Intimate and Cultural Violence. NY: Palgrave MacMillan, 2014.

Doehring, Carrie. The Practice of Pastoral Care: A Postmodern Approach. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015.

Fulkerson, Mary McClintock. Places of Redemption: Theology for a Worldly Church. Oxford: OUP, 2007.

Jones, Serene. Trauma and Grace: Theology in a Ruptured World. Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2009.  

Miller-McLemore, Bonnie J. Christian Theology in Practice: Discovering a Discipline. Grand Rapids: W.B. Eerdman’s Publishing, 2012.

Power, D. N. Mission, Ministry, Order: Reading the Tradition in the Present Context. London: Continuum, 2008.

Rolheiser, R. The Holy Longing: The Search for a Christian Spirituality. NY: Doubleday, 1999.

Stairs, Jean. Listening for the Soul: Pastoral Care and Spiritual Direction. Minneapolis: Fortress, 2000.  

Willows, David, and John Swinton, eds. Spiritual dimensions of Pastoral Care: Practical Theology in a Multidisciplinary Context. London: Jessica Kingsley, 2000.