As traditional religious practice recedes, many New Englanders are increasingly turning to a different kind of pastor when and where they’re needed.
By Jonathan D. FitzgeraldUpdated
March 9, 2021, 10:47 a.m.
Carlito Ortiz hugs Lisa Loughlin, a Common Cathedral chaplain, after she prayed with him in Back Bay Station.JESSICA RINALDI/GLOBE STAFF
Mourning a death. Coping with grief. Healing the heartsick and soothing the sufferers. For much of human history, people addressed loss and trauma through rituals drawn from faith traditions, performed in spaces we called sacred — churches, temples, shrines, mosques — and led by ministers and rabbis, imams and priests. But in New England, where the influence of Puritan piety has yielded to unceremonious secularism, something more malleable is emerging. To meet spiritual needs when and where they arise, we’re turning to chaplains, people trained to work outside the structure of religious institutions. As church attendance nationally also declines, “the need for chaplains will only increase,” says Shelly Rambo, an associate professor at Boston University School of Theology.
The rise of chaplains isn’t necessarily a Christian trend, or even a religious one. The term is being adopted by other faith traditions, says Preeta Banerjee, Hindu adviser in the University Chaplaincy at Tufts University. Her role exists because there is now a need for “chaplaincy for different faiths” she says, as well as for people who don’t belong to a religion, often dubbed the nones. Indeed, the new breed of chaplains is distinctly ecumenical — ministers for the “spiritual, but not religious” set.
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Mourning a death. Coping with grief. Healing the heartsick and soothing the sufferers. For much of human history, people addressed loss and trauma through rituals drawn from faith traditions, performed in spaces we called sacred — churches, temples, shrines, mosques — and led by ministers and rabbis, imams and priests. But in New England, where the influence of Puritan piety has yielded to unceremonious secularism, something more malleable is emerging. To meet spiritual needs when and where they arise, we’re turning to chaplains, people trained to work outside the structure of religious institutions. As church attendance nationally also declines, “the need for chaplains will only increase,” says Shelly Rambo, an associate professor at Boston University School of Theology.
The rise of chaplains isn’t necessarily a Christian trend, or even a religious one. The term is being adopted by other faith traditions, says Preeta Banerjee, Hindu adviser in the University Chaplaincy at Tufts University. Her role exists because there is now a need for “chaplaincy for different faiths” she says, as well as for people who don’t belong to a religion, often dubbed the nones. Indeed, the new breed of chaplains is distinctly ecumenical — ministers for the “spiritual, but not religious” set.
Read more
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